family history ... agh well, you may well come across similar apparent confuddlements in your researchings, and it can be a brickwall ... but often it is all in how the questions were posed, who posed them, who answered, and what were the then laws, regulations and social norms that influenced the answers.
There were still people familiar with using 'thy' and 'thee' in normal conversations when I was growing up in the 1950s ... So if someone asked me about 'thy' mother, I would expect they were asking me about MY mum, but if someone asked about 'the' mother, I would need to ask further questions ... which mother, mine, his, hers, etc ... so 'the' mother could be related or not to me ... Same with 'thy children' or 'the children' ... so back in the decade when Mrs Roper died, and her sister Mrs Wilson was the informant, ... Mrs Wilson was likely grieving, trying to organise a funeral and trying to contact everyone ... and perhaps not concentrating on the funeral director's paperwork that he needed to complete... and the 'thee' and 'thy' and 'the' and 'thou' were the words being used.
JM
