https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=807105.0In this post I was asking for help to sort out a railway family, and to see if I could find where a DNA link was in my tree.
In brief summary, I have a 55cM link with Pauline. I found recently that she was a shared DNA match with Helen, who I can prove is descended from my Gx3 grandparents John Pay (1806 Nonington) and Hannah Athow (1806 Denton). So I am now working on whether Pauline is possibly descended from the same pair.
In Pauline's tree (or rather the tree I have compiled for her), she has a Mary Lucy PAY, born c 1835 in Bridge, Kent. The Lucy second name only appears, I believe, on the birth certificate of one of her children with Edward Carter. For her other children, she is Mary Pay, and on censuses her first name is shown as Mary. Mary Lucy Pay signs with a X.
She is NOT the Mary Lucy Pay born in 1837 to Isaac and Maria in Bridge (kindly found by Girl Guide in the thread above), as I have her documented marrying a Neale and dying and being buried. This Mary Lucy is the cousin of my Gx3 grandparents.
However
I have a Mary Pay, born c1832 in Bridge to John and Hannah, my Greatx3 grandparents.
In 1851 she had an illegitimate daughter, Mary Ann Elizabeth Pay, is in the census that year with her parents and baby, and later the same year married George Milgate Law.
I have the birth cert of Mary Ann Elizabeth, with mother Mary Pay
I have the marriage details with George, and she is called Mary Pay
Mary and George had four more children, Charles Frederick (1854), George Milgate (1857), Hannah Maria (1858) and Emma Elizabeth (1860) all born Canterbury. I have just received all their birth certs and she is called Mary Pay in all. Mary signs with an X
Mary and George Law are in the 1861 in Canterbury with all the children, however, after that she disappears.
She is not the Mary Law who dies in Canterbury in 1862 as the GRO shows that lady as 82.
George Law is in the 1871 and 1881, both as 'married', and in 1891 as 'widowed'.
So effectively I lose my Greatx3 Aunt after 1861.
Now comes the very speculative bit.
Mary Lucy Pay, from Pauline's tree, is 'married' to railway labourer Edward Carter (see previous thread) and moves around the country with him.
In 1861 the railway reached Canterbury, and then Dover.
I have William Carter, Edward's brother, born Lynn, Norfolk in 1835/6 in the 1861 in Deptford, with wife Ellen (Edmeades) Carter, born Lapford (near Dartford) Kent. They have a 3month old son William, born Farningham, Kent (again near Dartford). William is described as a 'railway labourer'.
William and Ellen have more children in Kent:
George Edmeades Carter, born 1863 in Blean, Kent (possibly in Herne Bay, as this is shown as pob in subsequent censuses)
Thomas Charles Carter, born 1865 in Wandsworth
Charles Edmeades Carter, born 1870 in Medway
and the family are together in Gillingham, Kent in the 1871.
I believe father William dies in 1871 in Medway, and wife Ellen in 1879 in the Workhouse, also in Kent.
I cannot, however, find William's brother Edward in the Census in 1861, and in the 1871 he is in Bootle, with 'wife' Mary Lucy Pay, and son Edward (1864 Yeadon, Yorks), and Hannah Maria (1870, Bootle). Edward is a labourer, but subsequent censuses demonstrate that this is on the railways.
So if my Greatx3 Aunt Mary Pay is the same as Pauline's Greatx2 Grandmother Mary Lucy Pay, then she must have left her husband after the 1861 census, run away with a railway navvy who was living and working on the railways in Canterbury, and given birth to his son in Yorkshire in 1864.
Even more worrying, she would have had a daughter Hannah Maria in 1870, having previously given birth to a daughter with the same name 12 years earlier. The older Hannah Maria (Law) is alive in the 1871, so it can't have been a 'replacement' for a child death.
Now of course this is theorising of the highest order, and I absolutely realise the cloud-cuckooness of the speculation.
a) apart from trying to see if my Gx3 Aunt was called Mary Lucy anywhere (she doesn't seem to have been)
b) finding a death for her - or another 'marriage' in which she's living
b) finding Edward Carter in or around Canterbury (or at least somewhere near his brother William in Kent) in the 1861
Can anyone think of anything else I can do to try and prove this flight of fancy in one way or another, or is it just something I will have to leave as unjustified?
If you have, thanks for reading!
