Manning Bloss BORLEY - Father - Robert LIMOU - fact or fiction?

[Valda]

Up to the 1851 census the Home Office was responsible for the censuses HO = Home Office
Thereafter it was the Registrar General = RG
The 1841 and 1851 censuses are more difficult to tell apart because of the HO107 start but the subsequent censuses are easy once you know the starting point is RG9 = 1861
RG10 = 1871
and so on

1851 census HO107 1802 folio 66
Kenton Hall Kenton Suffolk
Robert Symonds 34  looks like Bough - on 1871 census Burgh Suffolk Head Married Farmer of 395 acres employing 11 men and 7 boys
Susan Symonds 38 Shotesham Suffolk Wife Married
Jane Symonds 9 Grundisburgh Daughter   
Ada Symonds 8  Grundisburgh Daughter
Robert Symonds 7 Grundisburgh Son
Charles Symonds 4 Grundisburgh Son
Nathaniel Symonds 3 Grundisburgh Son
Althea Borley 30 Barham Suffolk Unmarried Housekeeper
plus 3 other servants, 2 women house servants and 18 year old Robert Gooding a farm servant.


Father's name on birth certificates

http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/births.htm

'The early registrations between 1837 and approximately 1850 are a little mixed. The Act of Parliament of 1836 reads "And it be enacted that the father or mother of every child born in England................shall within 42 days next after the day of every such birth give information upon being requested so to do to the Registrar, according to the best of his or her knowledge and belief of the several particulars hereby required to be known and registered touching the birth of such child provided always that it shall not be necessary to register the name of any father of a bastard child."

Now some registrars interpreted that quite freely and put father in even where the couple were not married and only mother or someone else was signing the register and some did not allow fathers details to be entered in the register. By about 1850 the situation had been clarified and the instructions read quite clearly "No putative father is to be allowed to sign an entry in the character of "Father" ". From that time, therefore there are 2 kinds of entries in the register

(1) Where the parents were married to one another, fathers details must be entered in the register and only one parent will sign the register (or some other informant)

(2) Where the parents were not married to one another there will be blanks in Column 4 (fathers name) and Column 6 (his occupation).'

Regards

Valda

[cogvos]

Hi Valda,

Many thanks for the info on the census workings it will help me a lot when looking through them.

I now have a copy of the 1851 census and hope that I'll be able to get to Colchester some time in the coming months to see if there are any settlement or court records relating to Manning and a possible father.

Also thank you for finding the clarification on birth certificates. The link was especially useful as it mentions the fact that some people just learnt to write their name, but still could not read. I had no idea about this and naively assumed that a signed name meant that the person was literate. Just goes to show that you can never assume anything when looking at old records!

J.

[5ubjohn]

Hi,
Manning Bloss Borley was my Great-Grandfather. He was born on the 15th July 1851 in Alresford Essex. There is no father's name mentioned on his birth certificate but, on his marriage to Sarah Snell on the 1st March 1873 in Claydon Suffolk, his father's name is listed as Robert Simon - farmer.
His mother was Althea Borley who was baptised on the 18th June 1820 in Barham, Suffolk (Alethea Borley). Althea was employed as a housekeeper for several employers but, in the 1851 census and just before Manning's birth, she was working as housekeeper for Robert Symonds, a farmer of 400 acres at Kenton Hall, Kenton near Stowmarket, Suffolk. I am certain that this was the father of her child and my Great x 2 Grandfather.
Manning Bloss Borley was adopted by William Watkins, who was also born in Barham Suffolk c1808, and his wife Mary. They appear to have been a childless couple. In the 1851 census, they are listed as living in the nearby village of Claydon Suffolk, where they raised Manning in Paper Mill Lane Claydon Suffolk.
It was at 2 Paper Mill Lane that their 11 children were born, including my Grandmother, Rosa May Mary Borley.
I do not know where the christian names, Manning Bloss, originated from.  I cannot find them in either the Borley or Symonds ancestry.
I would be pleased to correspond with any relations out there.
Regards,
John Tomalin   

[Aulus]

My guess would be that Bloss is a mother's maiden name somewhere up the line.  Manning possibly the same.  (a quick search of the national archives website reveals the Manning and Bloss surnames in East Anglia)

[Suffolk Mawther]

My husbands middle name Fruer took a while to find the origins.

It is the maiden family/surname of Ann, whose daughter Susannah married John and their first son bore the name as his middle name.

The first JF born 1790 and our son RJF born 1980 carries it forward.

It sometimes takes a bit of delving around to find these family names - always check back from the first person to have the name, on both sides of his/her family.  You may need to go back a generation or two to find the origins.

And yes, they are both very much Suffolk names.  Several people looking for Bloss and lots and lots of researchers looking for Manning on www.suffolk-surnames-list.co.uk

SM ...

[cogvos]

Hello John,

I guess that we are very distantly related then. you might like to know a bit more about Althea, though perhaps you have this already?

She was born on 30 Feb 1820 in Barham, Suffolk to George and Amy (nee Garnham) Borley, one of 12 children. I have no idea why there was such a gap between her birth and christening. Sadly none are Manning or Bloss, though the 10th was christened Decimus.  As far as I can tell Althea never married but was living with her younger sister Jane (bn 16 Nov 1829) at 118 Spring Road, St Helen Ipswich in 1891. She was still alive 10 years later, though on her own in Alms houses, finally passing away in 1905 aged 85, a very respectable age for the times.

As far as I can find out Althea is not a common name at all, (Anthea but not Althea) which  suggests that there may be a family somewhere in the past who had a set of slightly unusual names and perhaps this is the origin of the Bloss or Manning.

Equally it could be that it is a Maiden name.

It does look like Robert Symonds was the father and I wonder if there is a bastardy case somewhere in the records. I one of  these in another branch of my family, - a Rebecca Hite, illegitimate child of Ann Stringer and Thomas Wastaff (Ann Married a Hite who was transported at the time of Rebecca's birth). Such a record might just confirm the fathers name.

One of the (many) things that has puzzled me about Manning is why he was adopted by the Watkins family. Generally orphans etc were adopted by family members and at present I cannot find any link between the Borleys and Watkins. Have you any ideas?

I haven't been able to get back any further yet as, being based in London and working all week it's very difficult for me to get to Suffolk.

J.

[5ubjohn]

Hi again,

Yes, I had most of that information but did not have Althea's d.o.b. Thanks.

I seem to be missing one or two siblings and perhaps you can help?

I have:

Hannah Eliza BORLEY                         
bap: 29/03/1815 Barham Ipswich Suffolk

James BORLEY                         
bap: 25/02/1818 Barham Ipswich Suffolk

Althea BORLEY
b: 30/02/1820 Barham Suffolk bap: 18/06/1820  Barham Ipswich Suffolk (Alethea BORLEY)

Elizabeth BORLEY                         
bap: 11/11/1821 Barham Ipswich Suffolk

Joseph BORLEY                       
bap: 29/06/1823 Barham Ipswich Suffolk

Elmma BORLEY                         
b: 20/11/1824 bap: 01/05/1825 Barham Ipswich Suffolk

William Decimus BORLEY       
b: c1826  Barham Ipswich Suffolk

Jane BORLEY
b: 16/11/1829  Barham Ipswich Suffolk

There is also a listing on the IGI for a Joseph BORLEY son of George BORLEY & Ann GARNHAM:

Joseph BORLEY       
b: 08/07/1799 bap: 11/07/1799 Bradfield St George Bury St Edmunds Suffolk

I cannot see how this is connected to our BORLEY family being born at a distance and before George BORLEYs marriage to Ann and when he was only in his late teens!

Are you able to help with any additional information?

I am a member of Genes Reunited and have my full tree listed on the site.

Regards,

John

                       
                       
                       
                       

                       


                       

[5ubjohn]

Hi again,

Sory, I must have been half asleep when I noted Althea's birthday. It must have been quite a leap year in 1820! Could you confirm the date again please?  It cannot be 30th February 1820!

I forgot also to comment re the Watkins family, who adopted Manning Bloss Borley. All I can asssume is that they must have been friends of the family (William WAtkINS was born in Barham Suffolk).

Regards,

ohn

[Suffolk Mawther]

Just to say that the name Althea is uncommon but not unheard of - it did have a revival in the 19th Century and became popular.  Seems to crop up in Suffolk family history research every now and then 

SM ...


ALTHEA 
Gender: Feminine

Usage: Greek Mythology (Latinized)
 
From the Greek name Αλθαια (Althaia), perhaps related to Greek αλθος (althos) "healing". In Greek myth she was the mother of Meleager. Soon after her son was born she was told that he would die as soon as a piece of wood that was burning on her fire was fully consumed. She immediately extinguished the piece of wood and sealed it in a chest, but in a fit of rage many years later she took it out and set it alight, thereby killing her son

Found at the web site
http://www.behindthename.com/name/althea