Author Topic: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...  (Read 17775 times)

Offline Malcolm33

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #27 on: Saturday 09 June 18 07:35 BST (UK) »
   Upon reflection this has to be a case of desertion for in 1891 George said he was a Widower and we now know that his wife Mary Leggett was still living in Scarborough as late as 1911 and claiming that she was married.
Hutton: Eccleshill,Queensbury
Grant: Babworth,Chinley
Draffan: Lesmahagow,Douglas,Coylton, Consett
Oliver: Tanfield, Sunderland, Consett
Proudlock: Northumberland
Turnbull:Northumberland, Durham
Robson:Sunderland, Northumberland
Dent: Dufton, Arkengarthdale, Hunstanworth
Currie: Coylton
Morris and Hurst: East Retford, Blyth, Worksop
Elliot: Castleton, Hunstanworth, Consett
Tassie, Greenshields

Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #28 on: Saturday 09 June 18 09:27 BST (UK) »
Malcolm, you have done very well. I have all this information and hadn't realised that it hadn't appeared in my summary. I have tried to be totally neutral in my assessment of all this as it happened so long before my birth that I'm not really worried what my great-grandfather actually got up to!

Just writing the narrative summary did do a lot to convince me that the Scarborough George and the Hartlepool George are the same person. I do still have a niggling worry that there could have been two Georges born in Lowestoft in 1837 as the Leggett name is quite common in that area. Please keep digging but I agree with what you say, this is a very interesting scenario.

The 1920 electoral records do seem to indicate that they were estranged. I've also seen family In Memoriam notices from 1932 when Jane died, whereas when George died there was nothing in the local papers apart from the funeral notice.

MARTIN

Offline BillyF

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #29 on: Saturday 09 June 18 13:25 BST (UK) »

I just cannot do the quote thing.
However - Mart said " I have tried to be totally neutral in my assessment of all this as it happened so long before my birth that I'm not really worried what my great-grandfather actually got up to! "

I have a gt grandfather who seems to have been a bit wayward. It upsets me to think that his shenanagins led to my gt grandmother, her son and mother, were all left to live in poverty.

Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #30 on: Saturday 09 June 18 14:10 BST (UK) »
Billy, yes there are 2 sides to it.  Yet if my GGF hadn't left his wife and child and found an alternative life, I wouldn't even be here.

Martin


Offline coombs

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #31 on: Saturday 09 June 18 14:29 BST (UK) »
Yes, I can see how you will be suspicious about there maybe being 2 George Daniel Leggett's born c1837 in the Lowestoft area. Unlikely but a very very small chance of that, and if they were, they may have been first cousins. But I highly doubt there was 2 of them born in that area. If it was George Daniel Smith, then I would worry more.
Researching:

LONDON, Coombs, Roberts, Auber, Helsdon, Fradine, Morin, Goodacre
DORSET Coombs, Munday
NORFOLK Helsdon, Riches, Harbord, Budery
KENT Roberts, Goodacre
SUSSEX Walder, Boniface, Dinnage, Standen, Lee, Botten, Wickham, Jupp
SUFFOLK Titshall, Frost, Fairweather, Mayhew, Archer, Eade, Scarfe
DURHAM Stewart, Musgrave, Wilson, Forster
SCOTLAND Stewart in Selkirk
USA Musgrave, Saix
ESSEX Cornwell, Stock, Quilter, Lawrence, Whale, Clift
OXON Edgington, Smith, Inkpen, Snell, Batten, Brain

Offline BillyF

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #32 on: Saturday 09 June 18 14:44 BST (UK) »
Martin, that`s a good thing !!!

It just shows how life can turn.

Offline Malcolm33

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #33 on: Saturday 09 June 18 22:31 BST (UK) »
Billy, yes there are 2 sides to it.  Yet if my GGF hadn't left his wife and child and found an alternative life, I wouldn't even be here.

Martin

    You would Martin, you would still be here, only as somebody else.   One regular observation from NDE's is that we choose our families.    I don't think that happens all the time, but usually in the case of required learning.    Latest case reported is all in "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" by Cathy Byrd, published March 2018.     The are still making the Movie - see https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6710908/
Hutton: Eccleshill,Queensbury
Grant: Babworth,Chinley
Draffan: Lesmahagow,Douglas,Coylton, Consett
Oliver: Tanfield, Sunderland, Consett
Proudlock: Northumberland
Turnbull:Northumberland, Durham
Robson:Sunderland, Northumberland
Dent: Dufton, Arkengarthdale, Hunstanworth
Currie: Coylton
Morris and Hurst: East Retford, Blyth, Worksop
Elliot: Castleton, Hunstanworth, Consett
Tassie, Greenshields

Offline Malcolm33

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #34 on: Saturday 09 June 18 22:39 BST (UK) »
   We have to remember that things were very different a century ago.    It was nigh on impossible for most people to get a divorce.     I only discovered fairly recently that my great grandfather was in the same position.    His first wife, my great grandmother passed in 1883, and around the end of 1885 he married a younger woman that he had known for years even in Scotland before they all came down to Consett where I was born.    What he didn't know was that Ann Eliza, second wife, had only been released from a mental hospital - Kirklands near Bothwell, Scotland, a few months earlier.   I checked with the Asylum and they confirmed the dates of her admission and release.   So when James made a careless remark when he saw that she was acting strange, she went for him with a knife.   That of course led to a parting of the ways and a year later she was with her parents who had migrated to Ohio, USA.    She was followed by a young Poacher who married her bigamously in America.     James would have found out from his parents who lived close by and so in 1890 he did the same and married bigamously his third wife.    I have been unable to trace what happened to her, but by 1891 he described himself as a Widower - just like George Leggett did.    Then in 1892 he married a fourth time, bigamously for second wife was still alive in America.
Hutton: Eccleshill,Queensbury
Grant: Babworth,Chinley
Draffan: Lesmahagow,Douglas,Coylton, Consett
Oliver: Tanfield, Sunderland, Consett
Proudlock: Northumberland
Turnbull:Northumberland, Durham
Robson:Sunderland, Northumberland
Dent: Dufton, Arkengarthdale, Hunstanworth
Currie: Coylton
Morris and Hurst: East Retford, Blyth, Worksop
Elliot: Castleton, Hunstanworth, Consett
Tassie, Greenshields

Offline Malcolm33

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Re: When you can't quite prove two people are one and the same...
« Reply #35 on: Saturday 09 June 18 22:51 BST (UK) »

Just writing the narrative summary did do a lot to convince me that the Scarborough George and the Hartlepool George are the same person. I do still have a niggling worry that there could have been two Georges born in Lowestoft in 1837 as the Leggett name is quite common in that area. Please keep digging but I agree with what you say, this is a very interesting scenario.

The 1920 electoral records do seem to indicate that they were estranged. I've also seen family In Memoriam notices from 1932 when Jane died, whereas when George died there was nothing in the local papers apart from the funeral notice.

MARTIN

    Yes I found the proliferation of Leggett's around Lowestoft in this search and even farther afield in Suffolk.    The fact that Thomas Garnham was from Suffolk and George was described as a Visitor rather than a Boarder when he stayed with him in Hartlepool suggests some kind of relationship.    I have tried to find it but no success as yet.

    Here is one example of the many Lowestoft Leggett's and what stands out here is the forename 'Daniel'.     I suspect that this family must be cousins?


Name     Daniel Leggett   
 Event Type     Census   
 Event Date     1871   
 Event Place     Lound, Suffolk, England   
 Enumeration District     18   
 Gender     Male   
 Age     34   
 Marital Status     Married   
 Occupation     Farm Labourer   
 Relationship to Head of Household     Head   
 Birth Year (Estimated)     1837   
 Birthplace     Lound, Suffolk   
 Entry Number     18   
 Affiliate Image Identifier     GBC/1871/1781/0140   

   Daniel Leggett  Head M 34 Lound, Suffolk
 Elizabeth Leggett   Wife F 28 Somerleyton, Suffolk
 Charles Leggett   Son M 9 Lound, Suffolk
 Daniel Leggett   Son M 8 Lound, Suffolk
 Samuel Leggett   Son M 6 Lound, Suffolk
 Laura Leggett   Daughter F 4 Lound, Suffolk
 Elizabeth Leggett   Daughter F 2 Lound, Suffolk
 Sarah Leggett   Daughter F 0 Lound, Suffolk

     We are so lucky when we find children given the middle name from a maternal side.  This happened just a couple of days ago with a Sarah Cromack who married a John Wright and they named a child Jane Cromack Wright.     In your case we have George's son George Boynton Leggett living with his mother Jane in Scarborough which cements that connection.    I haven't been able to find George Boynton Leggett in later years and suspect that he went off to sea quite early.

    Cheers Malcolm
Hutton: Eccleshill,Queensbury
Grant: Babworth,Chinley
Draffan: Lesmahagow,Douglas,Coylton, Consett
Oliver: Tanfield, Sunderland, Consett
Proudlock: Northumberland
Turnbull:Northumberland, Durham
Robson:Sunderland, Northumberland
Dent: Dufton, Arkengarthdale, Hunstanworth
Currie: Coylton
Morris and Hurst: East Retford, Blyth, Worksop
Elliot: Castleton, Hunstanworth, Consett
Tassie, Greenshields