Hi
I am trying to trace the ancestors of my great-great-great grandfather William Compton Cooke, who was a traveller, and wondered if anyone knew of any information about the Cook/Cooke or potentially Compton-Cooke family.
The earliest source I can find for him is a record in the FreeBMD index for a William Compton Cooke marrying Miriam Trapnell in Oxford in 1859. Him and Miriam are then in the 1871 Census and I believe had seven children: Miriam Compton (1862 to), Selina Ann Compton (1864 to 1923), Fanny (1868 to), Amelia C (possibly Clara or Compton) (1870 to), William John Compton (1874 to), Albert (1877 to) and Emily or Elizabeth (1879 to). I am sure I once came across a Marriage record stating his father as William Cooke, but I haven't been able to find that again. I have also noted that it gave his address as High Street, St Thomas, and his occupation as Traveller.
The 1871 Census gives his birthplace as Gloucestershire in 1837.
There is a death record for him on the FreeBMD Death Index as William Compton Cook in Edmonton in 1889. Cook is the spelling of the name which his daughter Selina used when she married David Pett.
His wife Miriam was also from a family of travellers (parents John Trapnell and Louisa ?- claimed in some trees as Louisa Westcott/Westicott). She died in Edmonton in 1908 as Miriam Compton Cook, however I am fairly sure his legal surname was Cook/Cooke, and that Compton was a given name. It looks like they may have started using Compton-Cook(e) as a given name after 1871, with some of the younger children baptised as Compton-Cook(e).
Does anybody have any info on a travelling Cook(e) family? Especially if the given name Compton (or surname Compton) features.