The lady in the
photograph is my great grandmother Elizabeth Hancock and this
story is about her and how I have used witnesses in marriage certificates, the
baptism of an illegitimate child and an informant at a death to find her.
Unlike today when my great grandchildren know me and their great grandmother,
'Granny Annie'. I did not know Elizabeth or anything about her apart from her
name, yet part of her is undoubtedly in me.
As she sits in the
photographer's studio, I wonder what she is thinking? She is on her own here as
I feel she has been for much of her life. She is married and has children but
she looks quite pensive, and perhaps thinking of times past. What these thoughts
are I may never find out, or will I? With my story about how I found her
throughout her life, I may just catch a glimpse of these thoughts.
I have no idea why
this came to me quite recently, as I have been researching my family on and off
for over twenty years and have come
across a few brick walls with little or
no idea how to surmount them. I was privileged, I suppose to have to hand many
original certificates of births deaths and marriages for my Mathieson family,
plus carrying out most of my searching in Scotland. It had never occurred to me
that witnesses could hold such importance in finding others and breaking down
brick walls. We read in guides that when looking for people in census records
to look at neighbours and even go through a few pages either side of your
relative, because you may just find a sibling or other relative. Why not do the
same with witnesses?
Throughout this
story I admit my errors and assumptions, because I learned from them. I have
broken some basic rules in genealogy, taken wrong turnings and let enumerators
lead me up the garden path. I have learned never to believe transcriptions or
to take as gospel the information written by church and civil officials.
One great example I
have of continuous transcription errors is in my Ayrshire side of the family,
my surname ancestors. During the mid to late 18th century I found an ancestor
by the name of Harry McCandlish, who incidentally was a very great friend of Robert
Burns. His father was also named Harry, and his son was named so. Over several
transcriptions of births for his children his name went from Harry McCandlish
to become Hairry Candles. Surely my ancestors weren't waxworks!
My idea is not
original. What I set out to do was to show how I have used this to my advantage
to surmount some brick walls.
I have found that
doing just this with witnesses has paid dividends. I have never done so with my
Scottish side as I have been concentrating elsewhere recently, but I will go
over old research and look closely at these witnesses as I'm sure they will lead
me to other people
On marriage
certificates and parish records, witnesses quite often are siblings or close
friends of the couple, or at least one is. Informants at deaths usually fall
into the same category. Sometimes they bear no relationship whatsoever. I have
to admit, it never occurred to me until I encountered a puzzle whilst searching
during the 19th century for the London side of my family . Whilst looking for
my great grandmother's parents one of the witnesses at their wedding in London
prompted me to find out if they lived at the address given but as it turned
out, it provided a link to people in the '41 census, an illegitimate child and
a woman I never knew existed. In fact the searching for and finding of this
witness proved vital in tracing my great grandmother and became one person who
tied things together.
It is quite a long
story but it will shed some light on why I never miss looking for connections
with the witnesses at weddings and informants on death certificates.
Family Tree
To save some
confusion, my surname is Mathieson. My
mother was Swankie and her mother Hancock and it is from her, my grandmother I
am going backwards and coming forward.
For some time I have
been building my family history in Scotland, around Ayrshire and Angus where
most of my family hail from. Since Scotland's birth, marriage and death records
are held centrally in the General Register Office in Edinburgh and they have an
excellent website, ScotlandsPeople, finding the majority of these records
proved quite easy. However you will see that I had recourse to change direction
into unknown territory.
My Grandmother
Swankie was never known by gran or nan or nana, she was always known by her
family, and I mean right down to grandchildren as 'Mother Swankie'. She was so
well known and liked that most of the folks in Port Glasgow also knew her as
Mother Swankie.
As far as I was
aware, on information from my mother, her grandmother was Irish and her name
was Scarbrough. My mother told me that her mother rarely spoke of her parents.
I wish with hindsight that I had the sense when I was a teenager, to ask my
grandmother about her parents. I would have had ample opportunity as she lived
with us for several years and she and I were great friends. But I did not so
there it is and looking back with regrets is just not in my makeup. I took my
mother's information and looked through available Irish records but they proved
fruitless. Since my grandmother was born in the early 1880's in Port Glasgow,
Renfrewshire and her maiden name was Hancock I reckoned that would be my first
avenue to search as a record of her birth would provide the names of her
parents, and if they married in Scotland, the date and place thereof.
 |
| Elizabeth Hancock Birth 1882 |
 |
| Elizabeth Swankie (Hancock) with husband Peter
At no time did I
expect to find my grandmother's parents, or any other ancestors outside
Scotland or Ireland but there it was in black and white, the marriage was in
England. This was new territory for me and being unsure where Brentford was, I
dug out the maps, well I googled it.
|
It now looked as
though the only way I could trace my great grandmother was through the English
records, and since I had never carried out any searches there, I carried out a
general search for English genealogy sites. I had used the IGI (now family search.org)
quite often in the past as a starter to give me a point
of reference for looking up Scotland's People, and also FreeCen, FreeBMD and
FreeReg. As my grandfather Peter Swankie's family came from Auchmithie and
Arbroath in Angus, FreeReg proved a great boon to my searches as they appear to
have digitised most of the Angus records. My general search threw up various
other sites which were subscription based, but I decided to try my luck with a
free site first. I looked firstly at FreeBMD which did provide a record of
William Hancock in the marriage indexes for 1877. Having the page and folio
numbers, I now looked for Elizabeth Scarbrough and found her under the same
index. Using the details to hand I took the plunge and ordered the marriage
certificate and from that I found that my gran's father was a soldier, as he is
shown on the certificate as 'Private in the 8th Hussars'. Having had an
interest in military regiments for some time, and having various publications
on them, I looked up the 8th Hussars and found that the full name was 'The Kings
Own Royal Irish Hussars'. It looked as though my gran's father was Irish.
William Hancock
& Elizabeth Scarbrough Marriage 1877
I now had my first
marriage certificate showing my great grandparents; William Hancock aged 37 and
Elizabeth Scarbrough aged 28 , giving her a birth date around 1848/9, and the
names of their parents, Thomas Scarbrough , mercantile clerk, deceased, and Thomas
Hancock, steward.
I have subsequently
obtained William's military records which show him, on his attestation in 1858,
as being from Minniscallop, Ballymoney, Co. Down and joining the hussars in
Belfast. He spent some years in India during the sweep up after the Indian Mutiny
and remained with his regiment until his discharge at Shorncliffe, Kent in
1879. Try as I may, I cannot find any reference to Minniscallop in any other
documents or on old maps. I searched many lists of townlands and the only
places which may come close are Mullinsallagh, Ahoghill, Ballymena, Antrim;
Minnis North & Minnis South, Antrim, just north of Larne. Ballymoney, of
course, is not in Co. Down, but in Antrim. This of course must be verified, but
doing so with limited Irish records is frustrating.
Since I now had an
age at marriage for Elizabeth, it was time to find out when and where she was
born. I started my search in and around where she was married.
When searching, I
normally begin with a narrow timescale and, dependent upon results and slowly
broaden the search. I made another assumption, in that since Elizabeth and
William were married in The Shrewsbury Place, Isleworth, Brentford, Middlesex
that Elizabeth's parents lived there, thus she would be born there. Since The
marriage took place in Middlesex, I
continued my search in that county, slowly stretching the dates back to 1833,
but to no avail.
Since William
Hancock was a soldier, and there being a barracks in Hounslow, in close
proximity to where the marriage took place, I
assumed that this could be the reason they married near the barracks,
and that both witnesses were also soldiers. So where did Elizabeth come from?
I was stuck, so
threw caution to the wind, signed up for Ancestry and carried out a general
search of births in England, selecting Middlesex and adjacent counties as
parameters. This provided quite a sizeable list and took some time to plough
through. Most of the births/baptisms were for Elizabeth Scarborough/Scarbrow
but only one showed a mother with that name on a baptism for an Elizabeth
Crase, but this was in 1830, which would have made my Elizabeth too old at her
marriage. I saved that entry to my shoebox and am glad that I did as it proved
to be one of the best finds in all of my research. I found an Elizabeth born to Thomas
Scarborough in Tower Hamlets in 1846, and once again saved the search to my
shoebox. Eventually I found an index for April/May/June 1848 for another
Elizabeth Scarbrough. The date was close enough to give her an age of 29 in
1877, so I ordered a certificate.
When the certificate
arrived I hoped that it was the correct one. Twentysixth June 1848, 31 King
Street Southwark, Elizabeth Augusta, Girl, Father: Thomas Scarbrough, wine
porter, Mother: Elizabeth Scarbrough formerly Hoskin. I hoped that I had found
my great grandmother. It was entirely possible that I was wrong of course but
her middle name reminded me of my grandmother's sister Augusta and of course my
grandmother Elizabeth. Southwark is a little way east of Isleworth of course so
why was she not married in Southwark?
The path from Southwark, as I will show leads in the opposite direction
and, leaves a gap in my research, which I hope to bridge someday. Further
research would confirm this as the correct certificate. Thomas was not as
stated on Elizabeth's marriage, as a mercantile clerk however, but a wine
porter. I did a little bit of digging, thinking that he worked on the docks but
discovered that the trade was part of the coopering trade.
 |
| Birth of Elizabeth Augusta Scarbrough 1848 |
 |
| How I think she may have looked |
Since I had now
found my great grandmother, it was time to find a marriage for her parents,
Thomas and Elizabeth, who since young Elizabeth was born about 1848, were
probably married prior to or just after that date. One way to determine this
would be the census and I decided to
firstly look at the '51 census to confirm that Thomas and Elizabeth were living
and in Southwark. I could then work my way back in time to find when they
married.
1851 Census Page 35
Parish/Township:
Bermondsey. Ecclesiastical District: St James. Borough: Southwark
Ref: H.O. 107/1560
Earl Terrace No.3
George Blye
|
Head
|
27
|
Porter
|
Jane
|
Wife
|
30
|
|
Ed Barbridge
|
Lodger
|
24
|
Porter
|
Thos Scarbrough
|
Lodger
|
37
|
Wine Cooper
|
Elizabeth
|
Wife
|
37
|
|
Mary Jane
|
Daughter
|
4
|
|
Eliz Aug
|
Daughter
|
2
|
A search of that
census proved correct and showed them living as lodgers in Bermondsey, in the
borough of Southwark, and her father's occupation as wine cooper. It also
showed up an older sibling for my great grandmother, Mary Jane, born 1846. That
told me that her parents were married before 1846. I looked for marriages for
them between 1840 & 1846 but found no records, so perhaps they married
before 1840. Or were living at a different address.
1841 Census: England
County: Surrey H.O.: 107 Book: 1 Folio: 17 Piece: 1088
King Street, Bowling
Green Lane
Thomas Scarbrough
|
Head
|
25
|
Elizabeth do.
|
Wife
|
25
|
Thomas do.
|
Son
|
6wks
|
Jane do.
|
65
|
|
Elizabeth do.
|
12
|
The '41 census of
Southwark showed them there in King Street, Bowling Green Lane, Southwark which
tied in with Elizabeth's birth. This shows that they, for some reason moved
from Bowling Green Lane at some point between 1848 & 1851. Time to find out
why.
Three people on the '41 census seemed to be
missing from the '51: Jane, Elizabeth and Thomas
Who then were Jane
and Elizabeth? Thomas was obviously, as stated, Thomas' son. They were missing
from the '51 census. What happened in those ten years?
- Jane (under Scarbrough) 65 independent. She could have been Thomas' mother; she could have been a visiting neighbour, an old aunt, even a lodger. At this point, I had my ideas but had to wait for further evidence.
- Elizabeth (under Scarbrough) 12. She could be a visitor, a niece, granddaughter. At this point I had no idea, but patience and sideways thinking enabled me to find her much later.
- Thomas 6wks. Perhaps he was staying with relative or a friend that night.
It may seem strange
to work in this way but to me it is partly logic and partly a process of
elimination. I have come forward from Elizabeth's birth only to go back ten
years. As stated on her marriage certificate, her father was deceased, thus
looking at things this way could have found out his when he was still living or his death. It could also
determine any siblings not on an earlier census, who could also give clues to
any other family.
FIRST WITNESS
Since Elizabeth was
born in Southwark, that, to me was the obvious place to start. Wrong again.
Another wide search through marriages in Surrey and Middlesex. This search
proved fruitful as I found a marriage in London in 1839 between Thomas
Scarbrough, wine cooper, and Elizabeth Hoskin in the parish of St Nicholas Cole
Abbey, City of London. Another certificate ordered. It is possible that since
in 1839 Thomas occupation was a wine cooper that the parish clerk entered his
occupation wrongly.
 |
| Marriage of Thomas Scarbrough & Elizabeth Hoskin 1839 |
 |
| Knightrider Street, showing St Nicholas Cole Abbey |
 |
| Old Change London |
The address given at
marriage was 17 Old Change for both parties ( a common occurrence if both
parties lived outwith that parish), therefore I wanted to know if they lived
there and then moved south of the river to Southwark. Since the first proper
census was in 1841, it would be difficult to find them in 1839.
This is when I first
looked at witnesses as it was possible that one or both lived near to the
couple. My question was, did they actually live in 17 Old Change, or was this
an address of convenience? Since the witness names were given as John Jepson &
Elizabeth Miels, I wanted to find out if either of them lived in Old Change and
if Thomas and Elizabeth had lived with them prior to their marriage. To me ,
the most obvious place to look was the '41 census. The first search was for
John Jepson, in case he was a friend or colleague of Thomas, and found that he
was the parish clerk. John lived across the river in Southwark, but there was
no connection.
If I could find
Elizabeth Miels, I may have the answer to my question as they may have been
living with her. Since she had signed Miels as a witness, I assumed that she
may be of European extraction and that the name would pop up in a search. What
I did not know until much later was that she had misspelled her name. Had this
been a mistranscription or an error on the part of the parish clerk, I would
have searched with names starting with or close to, but I didn't and broke one
of my basic rules again, never trust a parish clerk. I struggled therefore, to find Elizabeth
Miels using searches. I finally brought up the images of the census for that
area of London and sat trawling my way through each page to no avail. Either
she had lived there and moved or had never lived there in the first place.
Would it be a great mistake to give up looking for her? There is an old adage
in my house that if you are looking for something and can't find it, it will
probably turn up when looking for something else, and that is exactly what
happened with Ms Miels. I will give a full explanation later , for to do so now
would detract from my story.
Since I now had more
information on which to search I decided to find births for Thomas and
Elizabeth .
Firstly I
concentrated on my great grandmother's father, Thomas. His age was given as 25
in the '41 census, and knowing that enumerators were told to round ages up or
down , I reckoned that he was born between 1811 and 1816.
As no ages were
given on Thomas and Elizabeth's marriage certificate, I had no idea when he was
born, but the more accurate (age wise) '51 census showed him as 37, so that
meant a birth around 1814. A search then of births around +/- 2 years found
nothing in parish registers. Maybe the records were missing or the birth not
registered. By accident I clicked on non-conformist registers in Surrey and
found him in 1814 baptised to Thomas
Scarbrough and Jane, King Street, Southwark and that address ties him to his
address in the '41 census. It looks then that I may also have found the Jane in
the '41 census.
I still had no idea
who the young Elizabeth was. This looked like the right Thomas as the date and
place were correct. Since this was pre civil registration in 1837, I had only
that record to go on. Notes made and print out done, I started looking for a marriage
for Thomas and Jane.
 |
| Baptism of Thomas Scarbrough 1814 |
The only records I
have for a birth year for Elizabeth Hoskin are from the 1841 and 1851 censuses.
The '51 census states that she was born in Devon. There are quite a few with
that name in Devon, but I have found it to be more prolific in Cornwall. To date
I still have no actual birth record for her.
THOMAS
& JANE
Since my mother
informed me that her mum had been raised in the Catholic faith and that
Catholics in the 19th century were still not entirely recognised by the Church
of England, and as such kept separate parish/church records, I decided to look
in those registers, but they proved fruitless. I tried the Parish registers in
the hope that a church record would throw up the information.
Ancestry has England
& Wales, Non-Conformist and Non-Parochial Registers, 1567-1970 and since I
had found a previous record there, I used this database again to find Thomas
& Jane.
Non-Conformist and
Non-Parochial Registers were compiled from those who were neither members of
the Church of England nor Catholic, and included such faiths as Baptists,
Wesleyan amongst others. Each Non-Conformist church could perform baptisms,
marriages and burials, but the law stated that these must also be registered
with the accepted church, The Church of England. None of these registers were
maintained in a uniform fashion in each church or parish, even the parish clerk
or preacher, had their own methods of recording life events. They did however
stick to Thomas Cromwell's original instruction to record births, marriages and
deaths, but not always in any set format.
It is a known fact
that, in genealogy, the further back you search the more difficult things
become as many registers have not survived the ravages of time.
As is my usual
tactic I started my search in Southwark with a narrow timescale and by accident
I had omitted to select 'marriage' as my criteria so ended up with hundreds of
results showing Scarbroughs both in births and marriages. I came across a
William Scarbrough born in 1804 so I took a copy of this just in case and
widened my timescale further. St. Nicholas Cole Abbey raised its head again
this time in 1801 with a marriage twixt Thomas Scarbrough and Jane Martin. How
could I verify this? In the register,
Thomas' surname is spelled Scarborough and his signature is also Scarborough.
The parish record gave no indication as to addresses but it did state Thomas'
occupation, as a wine cooper and of them both being of the parish of St
Nicholas Cole Abbey. I wondered then if I did in fact have the correct parents.
It is of course very common for names to be misspelt by church and civil
recorders, but the fact that this Thomas actually signed his name with the
extra 'o' made me doubt. Now oddly enough on the '51 census, the younger Thomas
is a wine cooper. Coincidence? Or is it a custom to follow your father into his
trade? Going back to my great, great grandfather Thomas, he was baptised to
Thomas & Jane, his second daughter was named Mary Jane, on the '41 census
there is an older Jane in the home in King Street. I had made assumptions
before but all my senses were telling me that this was the correct line. If all
of this is correct then the Thomas married in 1801 is my great, great great
grandfather.
 |
| Marriage of Thomas Scarbrough & Jane Martin 1801 |
I have been unable
to find a birth or baptism for Thomas in 1774 but have found one for Jane
Martin in 1773:
Name:
|
Jane
Martin
|
Gender:
|
Female
|
Birth Date:
|
9
Apr 1773
|
Baptism Date:
|
12
Apr 1773
|
Baptism Place:
|
St.
James, Westminster, Middlesex, England
|
Father:
|
|
Mother:
|
|
FHL Film Number:
|
1042308
|
Reference ID:
|
2:2M6WCV0
|
This record is under
England, Select Marriages in Ancestry and as such has no image of the actual
church record.
I have since found
Jane's parents, William Martin and Sarah Winter in St. Botolph, Aldgate, London
1767
 |
| Bond for the Marriage of William Martin & Sarah Winter 1767 |
 |
| Parish Record for above marriage |
On the bond it
states that William is a widower and as such married previously. I just needed
to find out. I carried out a search between 1757 and 1767 and found the
marriage in 1760 to Sarah Atherley. Further searches for a death of Sarah
Martin found her burial in 1763.
Maybe
coincidence or he was awfy fond of the name Sarah. It is the same William, as
his signature on both bonds is in the same writing. I also noticed that he was
a cooper. It is entirely possible that Thomas Scarbrough (1773) knew William
through work and thus met and married his daughter. William, of course would be
quite a bit older than Thomas but Thomas may have been apprenticed to him.
 |
| Marriage bond fot William Martin & Sarah Atherly |
 |
| Burial of Sarah Martin (Atherly) 1763 Buried in Bunhill Fields |
I have since
searched for siblings of my great great grandfather Thomas and found six. I
only know that William was born circa 1804 from census records. He states in
them that he was born in Westminster, but to date after two and a half years of
searching through ancestry, I have still not found a birth or baptism for him.
Mary is a similar
problem and I can only tie her to the family through her burial record which
states that she died in 1836 in bowling green lane.
Elizabeth is an
assumption, but I do think I am correct in this as further evidence will show.
Jane and Ann I do
have baptism records for.
SIBLINGS and THE LIGHT BEGINS TO DAWN
Throughout my
searches for the Scarbroughs I have found other children of Thomas and Jane:
William (Born
circa 1804; occupation; wine cooper; Died 1873)
Elizabeth (Born cica 1805)
Mary
(Born cica 1807 Died 1836 in Bowling Green Lane)
Jane
(Born 1811; Died 1881)
Thomas (born
1814; occupation; wine cooper married Elizabeth Hoskin 1839; died 1855)my
great, great grandfather
Ann
(Born 1816,)
The family, of course includes Thomas.
Now that I had found
my great, great grandfather's mother and established that the Jane on the '41
census is her, why is she not included on the '51 census? It's true, Thomas and
his family had moved from Bowling Green Lane to 3 Earl Terrace, Bermondsey so
perhaps Jane was still in the old house. A check of the census for her proved
that she was not there. The most obvious way to go now was to search for a
death. Once again using the non-parochial registers, I found her death in 1844
& burial in 1845. The address given was 90 Long Lane. For some reason she
seemed to have been living with her eldest son William as that was his address.
The informant at her death was William.
 |
| Burial of Jane Scarbrough (Martin) 1845 |
Looking closely at the above image, you may notice that there are two other Scarbrough names at the bottom. The address may give a clue.
I can only assume once again, that
there may have been a split between Jane and Thomas. They had lived in King
Street when young Thomas was born and he was still there in 1848, as evidence
is shown by his father's death, he died in 1832, and the address given at his
burial was Adams Place, St Saviour, Southwark.
 |
| Thomas Scarbrough Snr. burial 1832 |
To recap, I now
have:
Elizabeth Augusta
Scarbrough
|
1848
|
My great
grandmother
|
Thomas Scarbrough
|
1814
|
Her father
|
Elizabeth
Scarbrough (Hoskin)
|
1814
|
Her mother
|
Thomas Scarbrough
|
1774
|
Her grandfather
|
Jane Scarbrough
(Martin)
|
1773
|
Her grandmother
|
Thomas Scarbrough
|
1841
|
Her brother
|
Mary Jane
Scarbrough
|
1846
|
Her sister
|
I have shown Thomas
& Jane's children and it is they, or some of them who play a part in the
next chapter.
We have to come
forward a bit in time to pick up the story.
The last census
entries that I could find, in Southwark, for Elizabeth Augusta's parents are in
the '51 census, so what happened? When I was searching for Jane
Scarbrough's(Martin) death, I found the death of Elizabeth Scarbrough and one
for Jane, so thought I had found it in
1853 and ordered both certificates. When the certificates arrived, to my
surprise and not a little sadness, I saw that the Jane who died in '53 was not
Jane Martin, but a six month old Jane Scarbrough, daughter of Thomas &
Elizabeth Scarbrough, 3 Earl Terrace, Bermondsey. Elizabeth had died in March
1853 and her little daughter in April. Such a feeling of sadness came over me
to think how distraught Thomas must have been
to lose his wife and daughter within a few weeks of each other, not to
mention the three previous children who had all died very young.
 |
| Death of Elizabeth Scarbrough (Hoskin) March 1853 |
 |
| Death of Jane Scarbrough aged 6 months April 1853 |
I had, through
various searches, discovered that Thomas and Elizabeth had a daughter,
Elizabeth Sarah in 1839 who died in 1840. The 6week old Thomas born in 1841
died of scarlet fever in 1845 along with his brother William who was born in
1843. They were both on the same burial record as their grandmother Jane.
Thomas was now on
his own with two small daughters of seven and five. How did he cope? Did he
carry on working? I wonder if his brother William's wife, Catherine stepped in,
as they lived quite close to Thomas, or did any of his sisters help?
What I did find
surprised me even more.
I needed to find out
what happened to Thomas and the girls. At Elizabeth's marriage in 1877 he is
stated as deceased. To find when he died I had to find out when he was still
alive, thus the obvious method was to work backwards from 1877 to 1853, when I knew
for certain that he was still alive. Back then to standard methods in
genealogy. The 1871 census of Surrey provided no answers, the '61 census to no
avail, I assumed then that he must have died in Bermondsey not long after his wife.
I wish that I didn't make so many assumptions because I searched through deaths
in Bermondsey from 1853 to 1861 for Thomas and came up blank.
I normally use
Ancestry for my searches but if I'm having trouble I resort to FreeBMD or
FreeREG as sometimes they will deliver results quicker. I did a search on
FreeBMD for a death for Thomas Scarbrough from 1853 - 1861 and came up with
only two results, none of which was in Bermondsey or Southwark.
Search for
|
|
Surname
|
First name(s)
|
Age
|
District
|
Vol
|
Page
|
|
Deaths Dec 1855 (>99%) |
||||||
Scarbrough
|
Thomas
|
2b
|
||||
Deaths Mar 1860 (>99%) |
||||||
Scarbrough
|
Thomas
|
9d
|
One was in
Sculcoates, Yorkshire in 1860 and the other in East Grinstead, Sussex in 1855.
For some time I gave up on finding his death as I could not justify any reason
for him being in either Yorkshire or East Grinstead and it was finding of his
daughter in the '71 census which made me decide. From this I decided to order
the East Grinstead certificate. The East Grinstead death showed the informant,
'present at the death' as Augusta Miles. It turned out that the East Grinstead
was the correct one. Future evidence will show why this is.
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Death of Thomas Scarbrough 1855
Why he was in East
Grinstead will become clear with my explanations of the witness to a wedding in
1839, the '41 census, the '61 and '71
census, the birth of an illegitimate child in 1829 and a marriage in 1836.
On Thomas' death
certificate the informant was stated as Augusta Miles and his place of death
was Holly Hill, Hartfield, Sussex. Now why would a wine cooper be in a country
village when he died? The answer, or part thereof, could be his health. He died
of Phthisis (tuberculosis). Leaving the pollution and overcrowding of
Bermondsey was probably suggested to him in that it may cure or ease his
condition.
Thomas' wife was
also dead, so who was taking care of his 7 & 9 year old daughters?
IT STARTS TO COME TOGETHER
Who is Augusta
Miles?
The only place I
found that would show where his daughters were was the '61 census. I assumed
that they would be with either his sisters Ann or Jane or even his older
brother William, but I was wrong. It took quite a bit of digging but I found
both girls in Kingston upon Thames, Hampton, living with Richard Lacey, a
master grocer, and his wife Elizabeth and their children, as 2nd cousins. 2nd
Cousins? The plot thinnens!
Was this the
Elizabeth Miels I had been searching for who was witness at Thomas Scarbrough
and Elizabeth Hoskin's wedding in 1839?
What helped me solve
this was my wife Anne reading Elizabeth Miels name out to me and it sounded
just like Miles.
She was Thomas'
sister. The girl in the '41 census was her daughter by John Crase, the young
Elizabeth . I can understand her spelling of her married name as phonetically
it does sound like Miles. The poor girl just couldn't spell or was dyslexic.
I have been unable
to locate Elizabeth A Lacey (Scarbrough) on the '51 census, but I suspect she was working as a servant in Holly
Hill, and assuming her mother's married name of Miles, as it is the most
logical explanation which ties things together. I have no other logical explanation for this as I can find no proof of her being,as I assume, at Holly Hill in 1951 as having consulted information in The National Archives, several sections, including Withyam are missing from the 1851 census. It would explain why her uncle
Thomas was there when he died. She quite possibly was able to obtain some light
work for him and a place for the girls to live. On looking through the errors
and missing census details on The National Archives site, I found that the
pages for that district are missing from the '51 census, which would explain
why I cannot locate her. Holly Hill is a large manor house, which at that time
was owned by a JP named Bernard Hale. He was also a gentleman farmer and
landowner. Holly Hill is still there today.
I have said that the
'71 census was also important in this enigma. As I was now following my great
grandmother up to her marriage in 1877, and had found her on the '61 census, I
needed to go forward to fill the gap. The first record I came across was a baptism
in 1871 of Elizabeth A Scarbrough in the parish of Withyham, East Grinstead.
This was an adult baptism into the Church of England for since her birth,
Elizabeth had been raised in the Methodist church. She was living in Hampton
with her cousin on the '61 census so why was she in Withyham in 1871? My answer
was gleaned from the '71 census. She was working as a kitchen maid at Holly
Hill. I have oft times wondered where my great grandmother's middle name came
from and I now suspect that it was from her cousin.
1871 Census parish of Withyham
Showing Elizabeth Scarbrough
1871
Census. Civil Parish: Hartfield
Reference:
RG 10 1056
Holly
Hill
Holly Hill
I wonder sometimes,
how my mother or even my grandmother would have reacted to all of this. It may
have answered some questions never asked or given them a sense of who they
were.
For me it has given
great satisfaction not only to find my forebears, but to solve a puzzle by
searching for witnesses and informants, who as I have shown can make some odd
information make sense. It has also given me an insight to the kind of life my ancestors lived, full of uncertainty, caught in Victorian London amid the pollution and poverty which surrounded them. It has humbled me and led me to appreciate my life and health.
All of this research has been for myself as my
grandmother died in 1967, my mother in 2002, I have no siblings and no children
to whom I can pass on my work. It has made me wonder about families and in a
way lifestyles as my great grandmother died in 1900 and four of her siblings
all died very young. Even her parents died at quite a young age by today's
standards, but her elder sister, Mary Jane who was born in 1846 lived until
1939. She had moved out of Bermondsey when she married and lived in Westerham
in The Weald in Sussex with her husband George Warn, a barber who developed
into quite an entrepreneur and ended up as an antique dealer. The barber shop
is still in Westerham and is still a hairdressers.
Mary Jane & Elizabeth with George Warn
The Hairdresser's Today
I began writing this
as a demonstration of how I have used witnesses and in at least one case, an
informant at a death to tie members of my family to each other. It has however,
developed into a story of my English ancestors and the lack of knowledge I had,
not only of them, but of the system of records in England. I think it proved to
me that I could paint a picture on an almost blank canvas as all I had to begin
with were my grandmother's maiden name and the surname of her mother. It has
not been easy but I have enjoyed it immensely.
Now that I have come
to a conclusion, can I picture what Elizabeth is thinking in her photograph?
Was she aware of the tragedy in her family before she was born? At seven years
old did she have any sense of loneliness, of losing her mum and dad? I also think
that she may have been thinking of her own children, about their mortality and
their chances in life.
Most of us today
live in the present and do not give a second thought about what life was like
150 years ago. We cannot visualise the hardship caused by illness and death.
The separation from those we knew and loved is, today, neutered somewhat by our
surroundings, our families and to some extent selfishness. Back in the 19th
century there was no NHS, no welfare state, no bereavement counselling and
little hope of surviving illness. There was only family, and family had to step
in to take care of the young and the old, which I think I have shown happened
here. Despite having aunts, uncles and cousins closer, it fell to the
illegitimate child of an aunt to take care of Elizabeth and her sister. Would
that happen today? I somehow think that people today are so wrapped up in their
own lives that they pay little heed to family
in need. The benefits system seems to have taken over as the nanny state
and family no longer has much meaning.
After writing this I
have just picked up Simon Fowler's book 'Family History-Digging Deeper'. On
page 105 in his chapter called 'Leaping brick walls', he has a subheading
called researching sideways and quotes genealogist Michael Gandy, " Family
members crop up in the records as neighbours in the census, witnesses on marriage certificates or on occasion as
beneficiaries in wills. This is clearly a more difficult approach but could
well solve a number of problems".
I will admit that it
is difficult because in researching, accurate notes and records must be kept
and constantly referred to. Check everything and then check it again. In using
Ancestry, the shoebox facility is a great boon as found records, no matter how
insignificant they may appear at the time, can be saved and referred to at a
later date. It does keep a record automatically of all recent searches whereas
with Scotland's People keeps all previous searches, (mine go back to 2004) but
if you are fastidious in saving and keeping notes then the shoebox and your own
records will help you with your brick walls. I had to read up on researching in
England and on what records were available. The methods mirror those I was
familiar with, BMDS and census records, but the use of indexes had me confused.
How is it possible to marry up the name of a child in a birth index to the
parents, or from a death index to other family? This process was a steep
learning curve compared to what I had been used to, but perseverance and
lateral thinking helped me to link things together.
I must mention
Family Tree Magazine and thank the contributors for advice given in the
magazine over the past few years, without which I may never have got this
research and my blog off the ground.
I have shown, I
hope, that looking at witnesses and informants provided me with links to
finding what happened to my great great grandfather, his two daughters and the
12 year old Elizabeth on the '41 census. It is just a matter of looking at
these records and persevering in searching for them. There are times when they
will not provide clues but for me they broke down some brick walls..
When ordering
certificates I do not do so through Ancestry, but go directly to the ordering
service which, so long as you have the name, dates and book and folio number
from the indexes, is simple and straightforward.
This is not the end
of the story for I have some people yet to find. I have put my own theories on
just a couple of people but will carry on until I can verify or disprove my
theories.
I still have some
unanswered questions about Elizabeth in particular but also of some other of
her family:
Once I have the
information I will add it to my tale.
Links:
Ref:
Simon Fowler 'Family History-Digging Deeper' The
History Press 2012
ADDENDUM
During my research
on my great grandmother's family I had come across a John Scarbrough in the '41
census who's occupation was a wine cooper and wondered if he was related to the
family. It was quite easy to trace his life through his marriage to Esther Chick
and the birth of his children, to his death. Why did I do this if I could not
confirm that he was related? It was similar to the marriage mix up with William
Scarbrough, a hunch. I come across information which may look meaningful and
then I worry the life out of it until I am either proved correct or otherwise.
I must have gone through a whole garden centre worth of spades over the years
but in most cases it has been worth it. In this case I had searched on and off
for over a year and could find no birth or baptism record for John.
I had reckoned
(that's better than saying made an assumption) that the family had moved to
Southwark from Westminster after Thomas and Jane had their first child, and had
been looking there for John. Why didn't I keep looking for Westminster records?
Because like many people I got fixated with Southwark as my great great
grandfather was born there in 1814. Dumb!
I donned my sensible
hat again and started looking at the Westminster records for any J Scarbrough
born between 1805 and 1810, but came up blank in ancestry. I switched over to
findmypast and carried out the same search. There were several results for baptisms
for J Scarbrough but only one in St Margaret's Westminster (where William had
been baptised). On opening the record I found the John I had been searching
for.
John Scarborough.
Birth year 1808, August 7th. Baptised 10September 1809. Parents Thomas
Scarborough and Jane.
Record set:
Westminster Baptisms page 391.
 
Whilst on FindMyPast
I carried out another search. I had a death record for Mary Scarbrough in 1836
in Bowling Green Lane, Southwark, which tied her to the family, but like John,
I had no baptism record for her to confirm this. Once again the Westminster
records proved their worth as I found her baptism.
Mary Scarborough
born 17 December 1807, baptised 7 February 1808. Parents, Thomas Scarborough
and Jane.
Record
set:Westminster records page 351.
 
I continue to search
for a baptism for Elizabeth, who married William Miles in 1836, but to date
have found no record.
I have recently
subscribed to Chris Paton's blog British GENES blog which provides news and
updates on our world of genealogy. Last week the blog showed updates to
Westminster births and baptisms on FindMyPast and since I had found other
Scarbrough births there I took the opportunity to search for Elizabeth
Scarbrough, the only child of Thomas and Jane for whom I had no record and had
made the assumption that she was their daughter and thus the mother of the
illegitimate child, Elizabeth Augustus Scarbrough (Crase). I had searched
through several sites over a couple of years to no avail and was becoming a wee
bit doubtful that my assumption was correct.
Searching FindMyPast
for Elizabeth gave no results. Another search with just her initial proved
fruitful and showed once again that gut feelings and some assumptions can be
right.
Elizabeth was born
10 August 1802 St. Margaret's Westminster, and baptised there on 08 September
1802.
The circle is now
almost complete as I still have to find her after her marriage and witnessing
at the marriage of Thomas Scarbrough and Elizabeth Hoskin. She married William Miles in 1836 in St.
Nicholas Cole
This completes the
family and proves my hunches correct as Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of
Thomas and Jane and of course, her illegitimate daughter, their grand daughter.
I wonder if William
Miles knew about Elizabeth's daughter? Did she send her to live with her
grandmother? Did she live with her grandmother from birth? Of course having no
1831 census, there is little chance of finding an answer. I like to think that
William was understanding and accepted young Elizabeth into the marriage
despite her not being his own child.
Was the Elizabeth
Miles, witness at Thomas & Elizabeth's wedding, and the informant at Thomas
Scarbrough's death, Elizabeth Scarbrough's daughter adopted by William Miles on
their marriage? The question remains if this is true; why then would she, on
her own marriage, be named Elizabeth Augusta Scarbrough?
The elder Elizabeth
Augusta must have been very close to her mother's family to have taken in the
two girls after the deaths of their parents. She seems to have set them off on
a correct path. Her own family were well educated and led good lives as teachers,
lawyers amongst other professions.
Elizabeth and her
older sister Mary Jane lived longer than their siblings and even their parents.
It is just sad that their father hadn't left Bermondsey earlier, as he may have
survived longer being out of the pollution and disease ridden accommodation.
This completes the
family and proves my hunches correct as Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of
Thomas and Jane and of course, her illegitimate daughter, their grand daughter.
I wonder if William
Miles knew about Elizabeth's daughter? Did she send her to live with her
grandmother? Did she live with her grandmother from birth? Of course having no
1831 census, there is little chance of finding an answer. I like to think that
William was understanding and accepted young Elizabeth into the marriage
despite her not being his own child.
Was the Elizabeth
Miles, witness at Thomas & Elizabeth's wedding, and the informant at Thomas
Scarbrough's death, Elizabeth Scarbrough's daughter adopted by William Miles on
their marriage? The question remains if this is true; why then would she, on
her own marriage, be named Elizabeth Augusta Scarbrough?
The elder Elizabeth
Augusta must have been very close to her mother's family to have taken in the
two girls after the deaths of their parents. She seems to have set them off on
a correct path. Her own family were well educated and led good lives as teachers,
lawyers amongst other professions.
Elizabeth and her
older sister Mary Jane lived longer than their siblings and even their parents.
It is just sad that their father hadn't left Bermondsey earlier, as he may have
survived longer being out of the pollution and disease ridden accommodation.
26TH SEPTEMBER 2018
Recent updates:
Re my great grandfather William Hancock. As I previously stated, I took his attestation papers to be completely wrong and the he was born in Antrim. I have found, through further digging that the information was closer to his place of birth than previously thought, thanks to new Irish birth records becoming available. The place on his attestation stated Minniscallop, Ballymoney Co. Down and I had tried many townland names to find this, to no avail. If the two words are divided and mixed they become closer to where he was born, Moneyscalp, Kilcoo Co Down to Thomas Hancock and Polly McCartan.
One mystery solved. The other one to solve was my great great grandfather Thomas Scarbrough.
Since I had now
found all the children of my 3x great grandfather Thomas Scarbrough, I decided
that it was time I started looking for him.
If I thought that
finding his children was a struggle, then I had no idea how difficult it would
prove in finding Thomas's ancestors. Having found a burial record for Thomas
stating his age at death as 58 and his birth Abt. 1774, I searched all around
Surrey, Middlesex and surrounding areas for a birth in 1774 and came up blank.
I had searched through all sites I was familiar with and still nothing. Maybe
he was Mr Bean!?
BURIAL RECORD OF THOMAS SCARBROUGH
As I have previously
stated, I do not give up easily, I may take a sabbatical or move to another
part of my family for a while, but I always have my to do list and Thomas is
always on that list, along with numerous other family members including those
of my Mathieson side.
In the above image
of the record the obvious detail we look for is a date of birth. Why, in this
record, should we take this as ambiguous? The date would give a birth year of
1774, wouldn't it? Not if you note the abt. This is an estimate. Why? The informant
at his death was not too sure of Thomas's
actual age. This was quite possibly his eldest son William.
Why would this
happen?
Today we can all
find out when and where our parents and grandparents were born because since
1837 in England and 1855 in Scotland we can obtain a certificate of birth,
marriage or death, but in 1832 the only records available were church records,
or as we, in Scotland call them, Old Parish Records or OPRs. These records are
only as accurate as the information given and of course the interpretation of
that information by the local official.
Those three little
letters on the record are actually a clue. The informant didn't know how old
Thomas was, they thought he was 58. Maybe he was older or actually younger.
Anything is possible.
Do you know,
exactly, how old your mother and father are or when they were born. Translate
that to your grandparents,; now how do you fare?
I'm talking about my
3x great grandfather. I didn't even know when my grandmother was born or who
her parents were because my mother didn't know. I had to search through
Scotland's People to find out and that, as I have shown, didn't give me my
great grandparents vital information, only their marriage. That is when I found
that I had an English connection.
All of this to show
that I was stuck.
I had almost given
up hope of ever finding him when I received a message, through Ancestry, from
one of my cousins;
Hi
Roy,
This
is a copy of the notes I made:
Father
of Thomas??
I have
found only 6 birth records for a Thomas Scarborough during the decade 1770-80
in England. The first in 1770 was to John & Mary but the child died at 4
mths. Another in 1770 was to a Richard and Ann - neither name carried on by
Thomas and Jane. A Thomas was born to Robert in Yorkshire in 1776. The other 3
are all to a John & Elizabeth in Shillington, Bedford in 1773, 1774 &
1777. It is possible that the Thomas born in 1777 is our Thomas (assuming the
earlier 2 Thomas' died). The names Elizabeth and John were given to Thomas'
children and Shillington is about 40 miles directly north of St Nicholas Cole,
where Thomas and Jane were married.
So
John is still very much a question mark but if you find anything further, let
me know.
Best
wishes,
Glynis
I decided to have a
look at any records for Scarbrough born in Shillington around that date (1777).
As I have previously stated, I do not take things at face value and had do
carry out my own archaeology, just to be certain. My cousin's theory proved correct
and I have since gone back another few generations. I have checked and double checked my findings and apart from one John Scarbrough born 1716 (and thus corrected to the correct John born in 1713) all of my findings prove to be correct. I was of the opinion that my line had died out in the 17th century but as usual I was wrong. Suffice to say that one reference I am consulting just now is the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.
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Blog updated to include missing content from 3rd August posting.
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