This mystery concerns my 3x great-aunt Catherine Morris, who was born in Kinnersley in 1849 and died in Burghill Mental Hospital in 1928. Until recently I had managed to locate her on every single census except 1871, the year before she married Henry Hodges in Linton (Herefs), with whom she was living at the Alma Inn, Linton in 1881. It turns out that in 1871 Catherine was living at the Alma Inn already, but was wrongly recorded as Catherine Davis because she is given the same surname ("Ditto") as the head of the household (John Davis) and his wife Catherine. While the younger Catherine's surname is wrong, her age (21) and place of birth (Kinnersley) are spot on. But here is where the problems begin: she is listed as the head of the household's "niece" - and I have not been able to find a family link between her and John or his wife.
John Davis is listed as being 59 and from Kinnersley (same birthplace as hsi niece Catherine Morris), while his wife is slightly older (61) and from Canon Pyon. I do not know of any family links to Canon Pyon. I am therefore led to believe that Catherine's relationship to John and his wife Catherine came through John rather than his wife - though this may be entirely wrong.
John Davis, who I presume to be the same John Davis who was baptised in Kinnersley in 1813, the son of another John and his wife Ann, is listed on the 1841 census with Ann (presumably his mother), someone called called Ann Tyler, a man called Edward Moore and a younger man called Thomas Davis (who could be a relation of John's).
In 1851 John, 37, is now living with his wife Catherine and a lodger called Edward Moore (presumably the same as above). John's profession in both censuses as a colt/horse breaker match.
By 1861 he and Catherine were living in Norton Canon with two servants - one of them, Thomas Seaborn, was the father of Thomas Seaborn Jr., who (perhaps not coincidentally) had married
my Catherine's aunt in 1853!
John and Catherine were living in Linton with their niece (i.e.
my Catherine Morris) in 1871. By 1881 John was a widower and had moved to Upton Bishop.
My goal is to find out how Catherine Morris (b.1849) is related to John Davis and his wife Catherine. I have not been able to find a likely marriage for John and Catherine, and the fact that they do not seem to have had children makes tracing her maiden name, and therefore her origins and parentage, much harder...
