Lavinia LOCK

[Sloe Gin]

Does anyone have any knowledge of Sabina and Lavinia Lock, possibly sisters? or their family.  They both seem to have had children with a William Davis.

Robert Davis or Lock, baptised 11 March 1837 at Lapworth, Warwickshire (parents William Davis and Sabina Lock)

Joseph Davis or Lock, baptised 16 Oct 1838, Lapworth (William Davis & Lavinia Lock)

Naomi & Susannah Lock, baptised  27 Sep 1840, Bickenhill (Lavinia Lock)

Sampson Davis, baptised 3 Apr 1843, Hampton in Arden  (William Davis & Lavinia)

There should also be baptisms for Henry and Matthew, though I haven’t found them under either Lock or Davis.

[CitizenSmith]

Hi Sloe Gin

Perhaps Sabina and Lavinia are one and the same person? If you say the two names aloud, they can sound pretty similar. So this could be an instance of the vicar at the first baptism mis-hearing the name. Or - if this baptism reference has come from a transcription - perhaps the transcriber mis-read the initial L for an S.

Best wishes

Sharon

[Sloe Gin]

Hi Sharon

Yes, I suppose that's possible, I must try and check the original entries if I can.

There's no sign of the family on the 1841 & 1851 censuses, but by 1861 they had moved into central Birmingham.  They are all using the name Davis by then.  William & Lavinia were living next door to Naomi who had married.  Close by, Matthew (my gg grandfather) was with sister Susannah and brother Henry and his wife.  Lavinia was living with Matthew in 1881 and seems to have been living with Henry when she died in 1888. 

Either the baptisms of Henry & Matthew didn't happen or have yet to be found, or it might be that they are two of the other boys going by different names, as I can't find any of them.  (They could have died young, of course.) 

What makes me think that Sabina did exist is that Henry had a daughter called Sabina.

I'm not entirely sure who Matthew's father was, as on his first two marriages his father is stated as John Davis, but on his third marriage it's William! 

Thanks for your interest, if anyone knows anything about a Lock family travelling in Warwickshire, anything may help!

[Sloe Gin]

Thanks to Ancestry, I've now got sight of the originals of these, and Sabina is a red herring - the entry for Robert's baptism reads Lavinia and not Sabina, so it was only a transcription error.

Otherwise I haven't got any further with this, except to find that Joseph died in infancy and was buried at Harborne, with only Lavinia (described as 'single woman') mentioned as parent.  It's possible that William and Lavinia married before the birth of Sampson, but it may just be that the Hampton-in-Arden vicar was charitable enough to give them the benefit of the doubt    I haven't found any marriage recorded.

They are usually described in the registers as traveller and/or tinker.  Still hoping that someone else may have come across these families ....

[jonnybrowne1956]

Hi

I can add a bit of information which I hope may help.

The Locks were a well-known Romany family and travelled throughout the West Midlands and Gloucestershire - it's worth looking at the Romany and Traveller Family History Society website.

Lavinia's daughter Naomi, who was my great great grandmother,  married Samuel Reay (later Ray) in Birmingham on Christmas Day 1862 and her maiden name is shown as Davis - she went on to have a large family. Naomi died in 1912.

So far, I've found no evidence of any formal (church or civil) marriage between Lavinia and William.

Sampson is a new name on me.

Assuming there's a naming convention in the family, Henry and Matthew, whose baptisms I haven't yet found, would likely have been named after Lavinia's father Henry Lock, and her older brother Matthew Lock.


 

 

Hi Sharon

Yes, I suppose that's possible, I must try and check the original entries if I can.

There's no sign of the family on the 1841 & 1851 censuses, but by 1861 they had moved into central Birmingham.  They are all using the name Davis by then.  William & Lavinia were living next door to Naomi who had married.  Close by, Matthew (my gg grandfather) was with sister Susannah and brother Henry and his wife.  Lavinia was living with Matthew in 1881 and seems to have been living with Henry when she died in 1888. 

Either the baptisms of Henry & Matthew didn't happen or have yet to be found, or it might be that they are two of the other boys going by different names, as I can't find any of them.  (They could have died young, of course.) 

What makes me think that Sabina did exist is that Henry had a daughter called Sabina.

I'm not entirely sure who Matthew's father was, as on his first two marriages his father is stated as John Davis, but on his third marriage it's William! 

Thanks for your interest, if anyone knows anything about a Lock family travelling in Warwickshire, anything may help!

[Sloe Gin]

Hello Jonny - that is wonderful and means a real breakthrough for me.  I had never found Lavinia's parents, nor that she had a brother named Matthew.

I had wondered if Matthew was Sampson and had changed his name - he seems about the same age - but have since found that he died aged 6 and was buried at Oldbury.

DAVIS, SAMPSON        aged 6
GRO Reference: 1849 Q1 in WEST BROMWICH  Volume 18  Page 443

Burial from FreeReg
Sampson DAVIS    Aged 6  Burial  5 Feb 1849    Worcestershire    Oldbury : Christ Church

I also obtained his birth cert - he was not registered by either of his parents but by someone "present at the birth", and not until eight weeks afterwards!  I'll post it here but it is only from the pdf so poor quality.  As far as I know this is the only one of William & Lavinia's children to be registered.

[jonnybrowne1956]

Hi Sloe Gin

Pleased to be of help!

To fill in a bit more about Lavinia's family, her parents were Henry Lock (1754-1806) and Sarah Lock nee Peters (1754-1823). Both were born, and died, in Gloucestershire.

Lavinia's known siblings were Matthew (1785-1871), Henry (1778-1869), Sarah (dates unknown), and Unity (1793-1873).

I've attached a photo of Matthew and his wife, Remembrance Boswell, which may be of interest. The Boswells were another well-known Romany family. the caption Willie Lee is believed to refer to another name Matthew used. The consensus is that it's definitely Matthew, and from my perspective he certainly resembles later members of my family including my mother.
 
Do feel free to have a look at my Ancestry family tree (Jonathan Browne's Family Tree) which is publicly available and contains the information I've got so far on the Locks.

Jonny

Hello Jonny - that is wonderful and means a real breakthrough for me.  I had never found Lavinia's parents, nor that she had a brother named Matthew.

I had wondered if Matthew was Sampson and had changed his name - he seems about the same age - but have since found that he died aged 6 and was buried at Oldbury.

DAVIS, SAMPSON        aged 6
GRO Reference: 1849 Q1 in WEST BROMWICH  Volume 18  Page 443

Burial from FreeReg
Sampson DAVIS    Aged 6  Burial  5 Feb 1849    Worcestershire    Oldbury : Christ Church

I also obtained his birth cert - he was not registered by either of his parents but by someone "present at the birth", and not until eight weeks afterwards!  I'll post it here but it is only from the pdf so poor quality.  As far as I know this is the only one of William & Lavinia's children to be registered.

[Sloe Gin]

Thank you so much!  I've been building a separate tree for my 2x great-grandfather Matthew's family, as I wasn't certain enough of some aspects to add it to my main tree.  So this looks like a turning point.

Recently I have been wondering if Henry Davis was Lavinia's son after all.  His wife was named Sarah, but their ages in the census are all over the place so it's been impossible to determine their birth years. Since the GRO added mothers' maiden names, I can see that Henry and Sarah's children were registered with mmn DAVIS, so I wondered if it was Sarah and not Henry who was the child of William & Lavinia.  Sarah registered Lavinia's death and is described as "daughter", although I didn't read too much into that at the time.  Daughter and daughter-in-law being pretty interchangeable, and she did not sign but made a mark. But it seems possible, especially with Sarah also being a family name.

[Sloe Gin]

Do you have any idea when Lavinia was born?  Most of the family were very erratic about their ages in the census.
Lavinia's age is recorded as follows.
1861 - 44
1871 - 65
1881 - 78
1888 - 68 (her death - clearly she must have been much older if her father died in 1806)