I've just spent some time filling in a corner of one of my trees.
The grandfather of the person at the root of this tree was married twice, and the first wife's family have proved interesting. None of the trees on Ancestry mention her, though he was a widower when he married the mother of his children. He was born and spent most of his life in Derby.
The 1871 census gave the best clue. He is with his first wife, who comes from Flushing, Cornwall, across the water from Falmouth. The "daughter" is actually from her first marriage.
It turns out that they married at Alvechurch near Gosport in 1866, and the marriage has him in the 62nd Regiment. She is a widow called Mary Jane Liewis (sic), and her father is Stephen Lewis, Gunner R.N. John Richardson was missing from the 1861 census, but the Army Lists show him with his regiment in Nova Scotia.
So I then found Mary Jane in Cornwall in 1841, with her mother Sarah, but her father is not there. I traced her marriage to Peter Liewis in 1857. She was widowed by the next census.
Then I traced Mary Jane's baptism (thank you Cornwall-OPC !) along with half a dozen siblings.
On the offchance, I searched for one of the children in 1851. Stephen was home! Age 71 and born in Wales.
Unexpectedly, the family are still together in 1861. Stephen is 82 and a superannuated gunner. His place of birth is narrowed down to Newport, Pembrokeshire. There are no likely baptisms around 1780, but there are two in 1788 at Nevern, east of Newport.
But Stephen had a pension. Search through the records on FindMyPast. Without the background knowledge most make little sense to me, but in ADM 29 there is a Stephen Lewis who is, for most of his service, a gunner.
Just after he becomes a gunner, THAT is what his occupation becomes at the baptism of his next child.
I look up the ships on which he served. Two are Falmouth Packets. It has to be the same chap.
The first entry on the sheet is for HMS Malta in 1811, and gives his age as 24. That's pretty close for a baptism in 1788.
Also on the sheet is a date of 22 June 71. Hang on, that's AFTER the census! Look for him and he is living with a daughter-in-law, in Southampton, claiming to be 93, which is about 10 years older than his real age. Maybe 35 years in the navy made him feel that old!
I must say that I enjoyed the search, and especially the finding, knowing that others had overlooked things. This little corner is not a relative, and is not even the direct line of the person I've been researching, but it covers a different part of the country, and different records too. I know there's more to find too!
