My 3x great-grandmother Harriet Elbro had a supposed “sister” Rebecca, whose precise origins I am struggling to find. I’d welcome any help in filling in the gaps in her story.
Harriet and Rebecca were from Gloucestershire, but were in London (specifically Lambeth and Westminster) by the time they were young women, and lived out their adult lives in central London.
Both seem to have had a long-standing connection with a Sophia Bentley née Manwaring (born 1800, Cranbrook, Kent) who was widowed fairly young and lived for decades at 31 Lower Garden St, Westminster. Her daughter Harriet Gibbons née Bentley also features as a marriage witness later on. I have no reason to suppose there was a blood relationship to my Harriet and Rebecca.
My Harriet was born in 1811 in Lower Swell near Stow on the Wold, Gloucestershire, and baptised as the illegitimate daughter of Mary Ann “Elborough” of Lower Swell. As Harriet “Elbro” she married William Haynes in Lambeth in 1839, with Sophia Bentley as a witness - and claimed Thomas Elbro for a father, though this was in fact the name of her maternal uncle. (The other witness was Samuel Hood, perhaps connected with the family of Viscount Hood who employed Harriet, now Haynes, in service in 1841).
In 1851 Harriet and William Haynes had with them at 11 Frederick St, Westminster two lodgers: Rebecca Mason, widow, “wife’s sister” 37 b Stow on the Wold, and her daughter Harriet Mason 6 b St Giles Middlesex.
Rebecca’s story, so far as I know it, is as follows. NB her birth surname is unknown.
c1813-14: Born in Stow on the Wold (per 1851) or Stoke Bishop (per 1861) in Gloucestershire.
1841: Not found.
1845 (14 Jan): Birthdate of daughter Harriet Sophia Mason, per baptism. No birth registration found.
1845 (20 Apr): Baptism (Westminster) of Harriet Sophia, dau of William Mason, carpenter, & Rebecca.
1851: Rebecca and her daughter are with the Haynes family at 11 Frederick St, Westminster.
1853: Rebecca marries widowed labourer James Sullivan, full age, of Regent St. Harriet Gibbons and William Haynes witness. Rebecca’s abode is 11 Frederick St - the Haynes’ address.
1861: Rebecca Sullivan & Harriet, with lodger Sophia Bentley, are at 31 Lower Garden St, Westminster.
1868: Rebecca dies, and her Victoria Park burial record gives her address as Lower Garden St, Westminster.
At present I have her as Rebecca Elbro in my online tree, but there is no evidence of her ever using that surname. Her marriage (if there was one) to William Mason has not been found. When she married James Sullivan she gave her paternal details, oddly, as John Mason, husbandman, deceased.
Another possible maiden surname for Rebecca is Holtom, if she is Harriet’s half-sister. In 1812 Harriet’s mother Mary Ann “Elbrow” married John Holtom in Lower Swell. They had several children in Condicote, Gloucestershire but I have not found a Rebecca among them. At present I have a gap in their family between William 1813 and Thomas 1821.
