Baxter

[faraci]

Hi David
Thanks for that interesting information re: middle names and for finding John's date of birth.
I have found David (1833) on 1851 census. He is living with is brother Benjamin (his DOB is given as 1775 and age as 76 - whereas he is actually 16!). I cannot find him in 1861.
I have also found Mary in 1851. Her name is given as Mary Ann Bayts. She is living with the Todd family (butchers) in Holborn and is a servant. I am now trying to find out who she married.
Thanks for your help.
Kind regards
Suzanne
PS It's freezing here too. Hope it warms up soon!!

[faraci]

Hi David
Re; David. I know! When I started looking for him I realised I had already found him. Have been a bit lax about keeping all my information together. 
Re: Mary Summers. In 1841 she appears to be living with her brother Joseph age 10. She is 13. No parents mentioned. Her status is Spinster on her marriage certificate.
William Day appears on the same page.
You know the 'Summers family of Kent, Huntingdon and Islington' you emailed me. William Day is mentioned on that. He married Ann the widow of Thomas Summers in 1832. So perhaps he was a step uncle.
Also mentioned is that Joseph Summers age 61 married Marianne Hawkes in 1878 in Islington. On Harriet Florence's marriage certificate in 1860 there is a Mary Ann (looks like Fawkes) but it could be Hawkes who was a witness.
Regards
Suzanne

[faraci]

Do you know what happened to girls/women who had illegitimate children at that time?

[bedfordshire boy]

I don't know where Ann Baxter was for these 20 years but she reappears as Ann Walton in 1881 and is living with the family in Worcester. She must have married again I think.

Yet your tree on Ancestry, which I've just found, shows her as living in Islington in 1861/71 with husband Samuel We/ilton. He appears to have died in 1878

In the same house in 1861 were a family of Summers from Yelling

[bedfordshire boy]

It's all a big mystery.

I don’t think that it’s a mystery!  I think that one needs to look at the family very logically, without any preconceived thoughts.

1827 Marriage John Baxter and Ann Richards at St Neots
1829 St Neots John & Ann baptised Benjamin & John
1831 St Neots John & Ann baptised William
1838 Harriet Florence b 1838, baptised 1856 St Pancras, parents John & Ann
1841 St Neots Ann 32, Benjamin 13; William 10, Mary 8, David 8, Harriet 6
1850 St Neots Benjamin marries – father John Baxter (not stated to be deceased, which doesn’t mean that he wasn’t dead).
1851 Clerkenwell, London Ann 39, William 19, Harriet 14. All b St Neots
1851 St Neots Benjamin 23 & brother David 16. both b St Neots
1860 Harriet marries – father John Oliver Baxter engineer (not stated to be deceased)
1861 Ann is Ann Welton living in Islington with some of her/her son Benjamin’s Summers relatives from Yelling.
1881 Harriet Florence Cooke 43 b St Neots with mother Ann Welton 70 b St Neots

It’s clear that all the above are the same family – the key person is Benjamin whose baptism links him to John and Ann; who is in the same household as Ann, David and Harriet in 1841, whose 1850 marriage names his father as John, and who appears in 1851 with his brother David.

Notwithstanding the lack of a baptism in St Neots, Harriet’s 1856 baptism names her parents as John and Ann and gives her birth date. Clerkenwell, where she was living in 1851, and St Pancras where she was baptised, are adjoining, so I don’t doubt that it’s the same Harriet. The only record of her father being John Oliver Baxter is on her marriage certificate. I think this is another of Harriet’s flights of fancy.

What needs to be found are John Baxter’s death/burial, which I don’t think was necessarily pre 1851 (he may have done a runner); Ann’s remarriage to Samuel Welton some time between 1851 and 1861, which I can’t find; then confirmation or otherwise that John Baxter baptised 1807 at St Neots is the right one (in the absence of any other John Baxter baptisms in St Neots I think he's the only game in town, although he could conceivably have been a lot older than Ann.

An Ann Richards was baptised at St Neots on 27 Dec 1807, daughter of William and Mary, victualler

David

[bedfordshire boy]

I have also found Mary in 1851. Her name is given as Mary Ann Bayts. She is living with the Todd family (butchers) in Holborn and is a servant. I am now trying to find out who she married.

In 1861 there’s an Emma Carter granddaughter age 7 living with the Weltons. Samuel Welton was only 35 so unlikely to have been the grandfather of a 7 year old, so presumably she was Ann’s granddaughter. There’s a marriage on 5 Feb 1854* between William Carter, carman, of 1 Crown Court, and Mary Ann Baxter of full age spinster of 24 Arthur St, father John Baxter, mason; and a baptism of Emma Harriet Carter at St Thomas Charterhouse on 14 Apr 1854, parents William and Mary Ann, of 1 Crown Court, labourer.

This looks like Mary born c1833

David

Edit * at St Matthew, Bethnal Green. Mary Ann signed by making her mark (x) which makes me question your grandmother's belief that they were an educated family.

[faraci]

Hi David
Thank you so much for this information and for making logical sense of all the previous information.
Do you think this suggests that John Baxter was still alive in 1854?
Thanks again
Suzanne

[bedfordshire boy]

Well that's three marriages where, as the father, he's not said to be deceased. Whilst it's often the case that the vicar didn't ask if the father was dead, so no-one volunteered the information, for it to happen three times is stretching it. So I wouldn't rule out that he may still have been alive after 1851

Which is perhaps why we can't find a marriage between Samuel Welton and Ann Baxter - because she knew he was alive and didn't want to be a bigamist

David

[faraci]

Hi David
Does it give the name of witnesses to Mary's marriage to William?
Looking at Harriet's marriage certificate it appears that she signed it herself, as there is no 'x' to mark her signature.
Another thing that is puzzling me is that Benjamin, John and David were baptised fairly soon after their births but Harriet was in her late teens before she was baptised in London.
Regards
Suzanne