Abraham Family Eaton Bray

[janetandroy]

I have done some more trawling (really should be doing the ironing actually), and having looked at the census for colmworth in 1841, there is a Jemima age of 55 living with a variety of other Abrahams between the ages of 30 and 7.  As already mentioned no George, and no male of her age though.  Maybe he was the James and has died.  I don't know this without following the lead of Jemima but given that George was born in Colmworth but was not registered as having lived there, and called his eldest daughter Jemima whether the Colmworth Jemima was possibly his aunt and he was born there during a ?visit ? short stay?  Just a thought but a lead worth following up on.  The information about Robert's wife Mary being nee Winsor from Slapton came via another person's family tree and not from any evidence I have researched myself.  It could be they have gone down a wrong road and Robert's wife Mary is someone entirely different. 

[bedfordshire boy]

No, don't plan any visits to Bedford until you're sure that you have the right father for George. First of all you need to order his marriage cert from the GRO at http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/

But I can't see such a marriage in the GRO index. Do you know when they married?

There is certainly a link between Eaton Bray and Colmworth, 35 miles away, via the Lugsden family and between the Lugsdens and Robert and Mary's daughter Emma. But as of now it's a leap of faith to assume that George birthplace Colmworth is the George son of Robert and Mary from Eaton Bray.

David

[janetandroy]

I see what you mean about the leap of faith, however we traced  George to Lincolnshire in 1851 (and from later documentation we know this is the right one.    We obtained his birthplace as Colmworth from a later census, and find no other George that fits around that time/area.   I do agree though that we need some birth/marriage certificates before proceeding.  The provenance fits though, agricultural labourers in Bedfordshire, same in Lincolnshire.

[bedfordshire boy]

I've no doubt that you have the right George in Lincs, and that his birthplace was Colmworth. What I have problems with is whether he's the George in Eaton Bray in 1841.

The 1841 is not always very accurate when in comes to whether or not the person was born in county. Lincs has two George Abrahams aged 15 in 1841, both said to be born in Lincs, but I can't see either of them in 1851. One of them is at Haxey in the north of the county. The other was living at Weston, near Spalding, an ag lab not living with his parents. In 1851 your George was living at Gosberton. Weston is only 5 miles from Gosberton. So if the George in Weston is your George then he can't be the George in Eaton Bray. I'm not saying that he IS your George, just that he might be.

Only the marriage certificate will help resolve the problem. But I can't find the marriage!

A George Abrams was baptised in Colmworth on 23 March 1821, son of James and Jemima (per BVRI ).  Your George was 28 in 1851 and 37 in 1861, a year or two adrift. The fact that your George named his first daughter Jemima makes me think that this might well be the right George. But you still need the marriage cert to confirm that his father was James, rather than Robert!

David

[janetandroy]

Yes, I can see two Georges age 15 in Lincolnshire on the 1841.  It does give place of birth as Lincolnshire though.  However, we have been up against it a bit here because on two later censuses george gives his birthplace as Lincolnshire on one of them, and Colmworth on the other.  I must say that Colmworth does seem pretty specific, where would this name have come from if there was no link.  I do agree though that the next step is the marriage certificate and hope this gives the necessary information.  We had in fact got to this stage a while ago, but it is so time consuming we had to give it up for a while.  The  possible jemima link is interesting, not such a common name to call your eldest daughter unless there was a family member with that name.

[janetandroy]

Follow up to previous posts.  After further searching, and seeking out the records we held already, we find that George could have been born in Cumberworth Lincolnshire, not Colmworth.  The census records are very confusing, one says Cumworth, one Colmworth and yet another Lincoln.  There is however a Cumberworth in Lincolnshire and I have found a marriage record for George and a Elizabeth or Charlotte Stanhope.  He was certainly listed in 1851 as living with a lady of this name along with Jemima.  I am still not discounting some family link with the Colmworth Jemima and may decide to follow that link depending upon what the marriage certificate says.  I do believe that some information we obtained from someone elses family tree may be incorrect.

[bedfordshire boy]

I don't think there's any doubt that he was from Colmworth

In 1851 it was Bedfordshire Colmworth
In 1861  Bedfords Cumbworth

They can't have been  enumeration errors for Cumberworth Lincolnshire.

I can't find George in 1871 or 1881 - where did you find him? Charlotte appears to have died in 1864

[janetandroy]

That's interesting about the different spellings.  From later censuses he puts as his place of birth Lincolnshire, then another Cumworth Beds. but now I am not sure if the enumerator heard Cumworth for Cumberworth (knowing what the Lincolnshire accent is still now let alone then), having not found one there something must have led to Bedfordshire but I don't know how that came about.  I am missing the actual census document for 1851 and 1861 they were stored on my computer that crashed and I didn't replace them yet.   All I have are my notes.  George and his family decamped to sheffield sometime between 1857 and 1861, where he then became a carter. We know they are correct from then on from addresses in Sheffield, birth certificates and information from other family members that were researching another line.  George had a daughter Georgina born c 1857in Gosberton.  We managed to track her down and her marriage to someone by the name of Gillott, she died in 1944.  My mother in law, who died last year age 98, could vagely remember her.   My daughter did a lot of the research but in the end she was spending more time with the ancestors than with her own children!!  Although the family started out as agricultural labourers after going to sheffield (where the family still lives), all  the men eventually became carters, and by progression to lorry drivers and that has continued through to the present day in that all the men in the family all the way from George  involved with Road Haulage.  George seems to disappear between 1861 and 1871 I haven't been able to find any reference at all to him, either on a census elsewhere or in the death registers.  He may have re-married since he was not that old when his wife died, we did find the reference to Charlotte's death in 1864.   Not sure where he went to live though.   I am now awaiting the marriage certificate of George and Elizabeth/Charlotte to see if the parents are named.  I haven't quite given up on the Beds connection, although having done other searches did find reference to a George, algricultural labourer of the right age living in Lincolnshire in 1841.  It's the Jemima that foxes me - it's not that common a name just to pluck out of nowhere, and there were very few Jemimas in either area. Hopefully the birth certificate will finally lead us in the right direction. 

[bedfordshire boy]

If you haven't been able to find him after 1861, in which later census does he give his birthplace as Lincs? In the two censuses in which he can be positively identified there's no doubt at all about him being being in Beds, once in Colmworth and once in Cumbworth (not Cumworth) which is pretty obviously a phonetic Colmworth, which would have spoken with a north Beds, rather than Lincs, accent. I would forget about Cumberworth Lincs.