Typhoid and my Great Grandmother

[Elliebean54]

Hello everyone

Please feel free to move if this is the wrong place to post

I have a number of questions relating to my Great Grandmother Mary Ann Palmer. She’s been the toughest brick wall for various members of my family researching over many years. I feel like she destined to only ever create more questions than answers.

I finally found her death certificate and she died of typhoid in a fever hospital in London in 1899. However there’s some unanswered questions still:

1. She was in the wrong part of London - there was a fever hospital in her doorstep in the East End yet she died in South London. Is there any reason a typhoid patient would be moved across the city or does it suggest she must have been in South London when she got infected?

2. Related to this no one else in her family got it - she had 5 young children at home and none were infected? Is that plausible? Does this also suggest she wasn’t at home when infected? My understanding is it was highly contagious

3. Her infant son (18m) died of chronic malnutrition 2 weeks after her death in a general infirmary in the East End near the family home, yet the family were not so impoverished that the children should have starved. Again does this suggest she wasn’t around to care for him?

You can probably see where I’m going with this. There’s no underlying health conditions recorded on her death certificate.

Does it seem logical to anyone else that she had left the family home? Can anyone come up with another explanation?

A final point we still aren’t certain who she was. Every official record suggests a different age (birth 1860-1872). How common was it for age to be recorded so incorrectly at this time?

Any input gratefully received

[louisa maud]

Have you got her marriage certificate which would, or should show her father's name and perhaps witnesses that might be family members

Louisa Maud

[Elliebean54]

Have you got her marriage certificate which would, or should show her father's name and perhaps witnesses that might be family members

Louisa Maud

Yes we’ve actually got the original and it gives her alleged fathers name (Peter Palmer) but there’s no record of anyone of that name having a daughter of her name anywhere near that age/place.
The closest I’ve got is an uncle who was living with his brothers family and had a niece of roughly the right age who is my working hypothesis but I literally have 5 trees with different versions of who she could have been.

My hypothesis means she was 38 when she died, her marriage certificate suggests she would have been 32/33 when she died, her death certificate says she was 28, the 1891 census suggests she would have been 30 

To add complications the DNA suggests she must have had Hispanic and Roma background so she may have been moving around. We know from what both her husband and children looked like she was certainly very dark.

[louisa maud]

Oh dear,not a great deal to go on really with the details you have

[Elliebean54]

Oh dear,not a great deal to go on really with the details you have

Tell me about it!

To add in more confusion she’s recorded on the marriage certificate and 1891 census as Mary Ann, family history said no one called her Mary or Ann but something else, later records including her death certificate show Elizabeth Mary or Mary Elizabeth and the Ann disappears completely 

At least in finding her death (certificate with husband name/occupation/address that proves it was her) we know she actually died roughly when she was supposed to, when until recently because of the name & age change - and it turns out wrong area of London as well - we didn’t even know that for sure. It’s been a long old road

[Girl Guide]

Can you tell me what her married name was?  Where does she say she was born on the census records, or does that change with every one?

If her father doesn't appear to be Peter Palmer then that possibly suggests that she is illegitimate or Peter is some other member of the family.

What are her supposed birth years?

[JenB]

There is a long thread about Mary Ann here
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=784979.msg6400106

[Elliebean54]

There is a long thread about Mary Ann here
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=784979.msg6400106

Thanks for posting that the informations on there for anyone who wants to look at her again with fresh eyes, though some of it might need to be updated - I’m on my way into work so I can’t read through it now.

I was about to say there’s another thread re her identity somewhere on here from a while back - this was originally more about looking for information about typhoid and the circumstances around her death

[Elliebean54]

Back to typhoid - I’ve fine some digging as it was a legally notifiable disease and found some detailed online records regarding her home parish of Limehouse.
It lists numbers of people from the parish (specifically including those from who belonged to the parish but died elsewhere) who died of communicable disease and when.
Although 21 died of typhoid in 1899 no case was recorded as being contracted in the parish in April or May and she died 12th May. So it at least answers my question for whatever reason she wasn’t living at home when she died

I have a number of questions relating to my Great Grandmother Mary Ann Palmer. She’s been the toughest brick wall for various members of my family researching over many years. I feel like she destined to only ever create more questions than answers.

I finally found her death certificate and she died of typhoid in a fever hospital in London in 1899. However there’s some unanswered questions still:

1. She was in the wrong part of London - there was a fever hospital in her doorstep in the East End yet she died in South London. Is there any reason a typhoid patient would be moved across the city or does it suggest she must have been in South London when she got infected?

2. Related to this no one else in her family got it - she had 5 young children at home and none were infected? Is that plausible? Does this also suggest she wasn’t at home when infected? My understanding is it was highly contagious

3. Her infant son (18m) died of chronic malnutrition 2 weeks after her death in a general infirmary in the East End near the family home, yet the family were not so impoverished that the children should have starved. Again does this suggest she wasn’t around to care for him?

You can probably see where I’m going with this. There’s no underlying health conditions recorded on her death certificate.

Does it seem logical to anyone else that she had left the family home? Can anyone come up with another explanation?

Any input gratefully received