Stuck on Bishop

[jillruss]

I'm completely stuck on my ggg grandmother REBECCA BISHOP   and would be grateful for any suggestions and advice to help me find her bapism/birth or anything extra about her.

She sounds as though she was a formidable lady!

If my research in the IGI is correct, she was never married but had 9 children:   

3 in Cottingham 1807-8 (includes twins)
1 in Paull 1811
5 in Hedon 1813-23 (includes my gg grandfather George).

I haven't yet found her on the 1841 census, but

- on the 1851 she is 66, unmarried and a servant in the household in Hedon of John Foster, a coal lime and corn merchant. She gives her birthplace as Hedon. I've checked the PRs for Hedon (at the Record Office )- nothing!

- on the 1861 she is 77, unmarried and a servant in the household in Hedon of William Foster, a corn merchant. She gives Paull as her birthplace. Again, I've checked the Paull PRs and - nothing!

I don't know if there's any significance that her employers had the same surname.

If my maths is correct she was born around 1785, and the only possible baptism I can find (IGI) is in Laxton near Howden in 1784.

I have her death certificate - she died in an Almshouse in Paull in Jan 1871 at the age of 86.

Apart from her birth/baptism, I'd like to find out how on earth she looked after 9 children ( ok - some may have died in childhood) whilst unmarried and presumably having to work for a living.   

Can anyone suggest any other means of tracking her down?

Jill

[Ecneps]

Hi Jill,

Here she is in 1841:  HO107/1223/14 fol.4 p.1  Paull
Rebecca Bishop  55  Spinster   Y (b. in county)
Eliza            "      25                  Y

Not much help in finding her birth but thought you'd like to know where she was!
Barbara

[jillruss]

Hi Barbara,

Thanks very much for that.

This lady is proving very hard to tie down but at least I now know she was in Paull in 1841 - and with one of her daughters. I'm beginning to think she really was born in Paull but never baptised.

Thanks again,
Jill

[Ecneps]

Hi,
Laxton isn't very near to Paull is it?  There are two Bishop baptisms in Laxton on IGI, one Rebecca bapt 1784 father John, the other Mary bapt.29 March 1789 parents John Bishop & Esther Holmes, who married in Howden in 1788, so if they were her parents, Rebecca was illegitimate.....setting a good example, perhaps why she never married? !
Barbara

[jillruss]

Hi,
Laxton is the only possibility I've been able to find for Rebecca's baptism. I've looked in the places she's claimed on the censuses - Hedon and Paull - but not found her.

Interestingly, going back to the Laxton baptism in 1784, I did trawl the parish register for Laxton and found the death of an Ann Bishop in 1786, aged 26, wife of John. So I did wonder if John Bishop's marriage to Esther Holmes was his second marriage and if Ann was Rebecca's mother. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the marriage of John and Ann either.

Trouble is, it's all theory until I can tie it all together!

Thanks for your help.

Jill