Where did Caroline go?

[dawnsh]

Just checked the Hulk registers and it was Joseph Groutage born 1808 received 7 October 1835 on the Fortitude, convicted of housebreaking at Warwick and sent to NSW 28 May 1936

There are lots of Groutage families in that area in the census and bmd's

[Sunnee_Dee]

Do you have the baptisms or birth registration for May, as I can't seem to find either?

[groom]

Do you have the baptisms or birth registration for May, as I can't seem to find either?

I can't find her either - the nearest is:

Mary Ann Groutage
Bermondsey   
1854   Apr-May-Jun
Volume  1D Page  57

[Sunnee_Dee]

There's also this one, but there's a possible death for her the following year, difficult to tell without the age on the death reg or a corresponding bapt or burial 

Maria Groutage
Bermondsey, Mar qtr 1857, Vol 1c, Pg 66

[groom]

There's also this one, but there's a possible death for her the following year, difficult to tell without the age on the death reg or a corresponding bapt or burial 

Maria Groutage
Bermondsey, Mar qtr 1857, Vol 1c, Pg 66

A Maria Groutage doesn't seem to appear in any censuses in the right area, so it looks as if she did die in infancy, so isn't May. I wonder though if she also belonged to Benjamin and Caroline?

[Greensleeves]

Thank you so much for your continuing work on this!

The only evidence I have found for May is the 1861 census, shown below.

[groom]

That's all I can find - no birth, marriage or death and no census after that.  Nothing for William either.

I wonder if Benjamin, Caroline and the two younger children did emigrate and left Joseph behind? If so, they must have gone before 1871 and there aren't many passenger lists then. I think your family do this on purpose, they aren't the first to disappear are they? 

[Greensleeves]

Curiously nearly all the lines which form my 'northern' family actually originate in Greenwich and Rotherhithe.  Caroline's sister, Frances, is my 3x great-grandmother.  Frances turns up in Hartlepool, County Durham in 1851 and marries William Shadforth (born Hartlepool) on census day 1851.  These two girls had six siblings; I have followed Frances's life and then turned my attentions to Caroline.  I still have the other six siblings to go through which might well prove to be a lifetime's work if they are equally elusive.   

[groom]

I still have the other six siblings to go through which might well prove to be a lifetime's work if they are equally elusive.

With any luck, Caroline might turn up living with one of them.