Happy New Year to all.
I'm fairly new to this forum and I'm posting in the hope that someone will be able to help solve a mystery that has stalled one strand of my family tree for years. I'm trying to find the correct birth location of my great-grand-father, Arthur Sydney Seaborne. On all census records, Arthur claims to have been born in Islington, but we (my siblings and I) have never been able to prove same.
Arthur's actual date of birth varies from record to record, but in general, he seems to have been almost a decade older than claimed. His death cert is the more believable. Passing away on the 11th Jan 1929, he is cited as being aged 78; i.e. born 1851. This ties in with certain other family gossip.
Our major sticking point, however, is his true place of birth. Before her death, my elderly Aunt compiled her own hand-drawn family tree, supported by a memoir of sorts. In both, she cites her Grand-Dad (i.e. my G-Grand-Dad, Arthur) as being born in Ipswich, Suffolk, the son of Robert Seaborne, an Auctioneer in Ipswich. Indeed, on his marriage records, Arthur himself cites his (deceased) father as being Robert Seaborne, an Auctioneer.
This presents two problems. Firstly, the Ipswich Arthur Seaborn born 1850/51 is spelled Seaborn (no 'e' suffix), as is Robert his Father. More significantly, perhaps, is that Arthur of Ipswich goes on to marry a Laura Lavinia Elliston long before marrying my Great-Gran, Alice Clara Seaborne, nee Prentice. Moreover, that Arthur has three (poss more) children with Laura Lavinia, all of whom are abandoned to a workhouse following their Mother's early death! It is possible, I suppose, that our Arthur was a bigamist and a not very nice character to boot. But I would love to prove otherwise, and find that our Arthur was actually born in Islington, and that he, too, had a Father named Robert and who was also an Auctioneer.
Any help in finding an actual birth record for Arthur Sydney Seaborne of Islington would be greatly appreciated.