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Hi Celia,

I think I will close it as far as Benjamin goes.  It has turned into a thread dealing with Ann Williamson, who is in the 1851 census as Eliza's sister.   

I found an Ann Williamson born in 1815 in London. 1815 doesn't square with the age on the 1851 census, which looks like 32 to me... I should see if I can find her in the 1861 census, where Eliza, anyway, decided to tell the truth.

Another thing is Eliza's father is Robert, but Ann's father is Joseph.  Eliza's father was an organ builder, and I know there was a Joseph Buck who was an organ builder at about that time.  Robert and Joseph may have been brothers, which would make Eliza and Ann cousins.   The only way to get to the bottom of that would be to find a marriage record for Ann in the BMD.  I will probably try that.

So yes, I would say Benjamin, who had died by 1851, is not going to tell us much more.

Regards and thanks,

Charlie Rignall

Hi Celia,

Thank you for all your effort.  I didn't even know about UK BMD; I will have to figure out how to use it.  That is a good point about Benjamin.  It may be that he went for a soldier for some reason, or somehow died unattended and was never discovered.  If he was a dock porter, he was in a dangerous and dirty line of work.  This is all a tad creepy. 

I'm going to try to find her in 1851, then I think I will quietly walk away.

Regards,

Charlie

Hi celia -

Full marks - that's what 'independent means' means.  But since Benjamin Shacklady was a laborer, and probably dead, to boot, and Robert Buck was a retired organ builder, and Henry Buck, with whom they were living, also worked as an organ builder ...  well you get the drift.  There wasn't any money, so far as I can tell, anywhere in that family. 

What adds to the mystery is that Eliza's niece was a widow running a tobacco shop and in 1861 she turns up as an annuitant.  Annuity?  Where did she get an annuity?  From selling her shop?  Would that have been enough?

Eliza (who by 1861 was Eliza Williams) turns up on the 1861 census, and that may give me a clue when I get hold of it.  Who knows.

Charlie Rignall

Hi Mosiefish and Rosie99 -

Mo, thank you thank you.  A more common name should make it much easier to find Eliza in the 1861 census - her name was trashed in the 1841 and I could not find her at all in 1851.  This is good.

Rosie, an excellent question. I packed a sandwich and dove into my mound of genealogical paperwork and found the Shacklady-Buck GRO marriage certificate - Benjamin was a laborer.  Both he and Eliza lived on Collingwood Street.  I wonder if Benjamin would have been willing or able to let Eliza travel to Manchester on her own.  That raises the possibility that he was out of the picture a mere nine months after marriage. 

Further, I had assumed that Eliza was taking care of her elderly father because he died in the Liverpool workhouse in 1848.  Perhaps not, now, though it made sense that as her father apparently had 'senectus,' or dementia, she would have been the one to put him in the workhouse when she could no longer take care of him. 

I am also starting to think the 'independent means' on the 1841 census was a misunderstanding or a joke. 

Thank you both ---

Charlie Rignall

Hello.

I have an ancestory Emma Helliwell Aspinall (Aspinell) born 1846 in Stainland; she married Richard Hoyle, a cotton spinner. Richard's grandfather owned India Mill in Bacup.

Charles Rignall