Alice Amelia PRIOR marriage

[gingerslf]

Don't know if anyone is still following this but I've had another response from the Seward tree owner.

'My Mum's friend in America remembers Olive and Alice as 2 different people. The only thing Dad did say is the girls (his 4 sisters) didn't like Alice, but Mum's friend said she was ok.'

The marriage certificate for Olive Swinsted and George Seward has just arrived and so has Alice's death certificate.

I'm just about to post details.

[gingerslf]

Marriage certificate for Olive Swinsted and George Frederick Seward.


Name is spelt Swinsted not Swinstead

July 8th 1909  Fulham They are both aged 21.

George is a bachelor- grocery assistant - Father is Frederick Walter Seward - Water works stoker

Olive is a spinster - Father is James Frederick Swinsted - Farmer

Both are living at 14 Studland Street Hammersmith

Witnesses are O G Steward(George's mother Olivia Graham) and F H Seward (his sister Florence Helen)

An initial quick search throws up nothing for James Frederick Swinsted.

There appear to be lots of SWINSTEAD births in the London area 1840- 1860 but no James or Frederick and nothing for SWINSTED!

[gingerslf]

Alice Amelia SEWARD death certificate.

8th February 1976 Bayswater Road Headington Oxford. (Townsend Old People's Home)

Name Alice Amelia Seward

Maiden Name PRIOR

DOB 8th January 1884 Woodstock Oxon

Informant George Frederick Walter Seward (son)

Usual address 16 Asquith Road Rose Hill Oxford

Certified by G F W Seward on 12th February 1976

[gingerslf]

A further response.


'Following further transatlantic discussion between people who lived near them after WW2, they now think Olive and Alice were the same person.... not sure why she would change her name?'

So I think this is as far as I get.

[LizzieL]

Glad you've got that sorted out, even if you don't know why Alice P changed her name to Olive S and then changed it back again.
And why choose Swinstead? Not very common.
Looking at Swinsteads with an Oxford connection. There's a Louisa Swinstead who married there in 1870, she was born in London, mother was Mary. I think it is the same Mary who died in Oxford in 1890. Possibly came to live with or near her daughter when she was widowed. But thet would have been too early.
If Alice did get to know a Swinstead family in Oxford, it would be more likely to be Rev John Howard Swinstead. In 1901 he was a minor canon and schoolmaster (of choir school) in Oxford. His first wife had drowned (believed suicide) in 1899 after a year of marriage. He remarried in 1901 Sep quarter to the woman who was matron of the school (same household on 1901 census) in Melton Mowbray. He was made vicar of Chalgrove and they had a daughter Muriel Mary there in 1902 and another daughter Joan in 1903.
Muriel became an actress under the name Oriel Ross. Wikipedia haas her age wrong by 5 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriel_Ross
https://chalgrovelocalhistorygroup.org.uk/murial-mary-swinstead

In 1901 Alice Prior was in Cowley age 14, a visitor with the Fitchett family. Susan Fitchett (William's 2nd wife) was born in Woodstock, but I haven't found that she is related to the Priors 
Perhaps she worked for the Swinsteads at some point and decided she liked the name

[gingerslf]

Lizzie
You will have no doubt noticed that next door to the Fitchett's there are lots of Priors but I can find none of them that are related, although I guess they must be!
Too much of a coincidence not to be.
None of them are born in Woodstock though.

Five years earlier (1896) Alice's sister Mary Ann Prior Hemmings gave birth to my grandmother just a few miles away in Cowley Road Workhouse.

[gingerslf]

Just noticed on Alice's death certificate  that husband George F was a commercial trapper!
Out of interest what might he have been trapping?

[Midnight Special]

 I was just googling my great grandmother's name and came across this thread. Alice Amelia Seward was my great grandmother who I met at least twice as a small child. My grandfather was her son, the younger George who lived at the Asquith road address (where I spent many happy times) I found this thread vey interesting, unsurprisingly. I remember talk of my Grandad once living in Sheffield so that ties in nicely. Btw I haven't researched my family tree, I've just always been interested in my ancestors. If anyone wants to contact me via this site, feel free. Perhaps I might learn about the rumoured ostracision of a female ancestor from the Haywards pickles family for marrying someone who wasn't approved of. Cheers!