The Mystery of Alice English’s Early Life : 52 Ancestors - Week 14

"Brick Walls" is the theme of Week 14 of the "52 Ancestors" Challenge, and there could only be one possible topic from me - the mystery of my grandmother's early life.  I have written before on my blog about my grandmother Alice English.   Here, I think is my last chance with the  large "52 Ancestors" community to hear  of any other possible ways to break through my major brick wall.

BACKGROUND

"How far back have you got?" is a standard question for family historians, and I am sorry to admit that the search for the early life of my grandmother came to a halt very quickly.

Above is one of the few photographs of Alice, with copies held by different members of the family. As she is wearing a corsage, could this have been taken on her wedding day?  A question I should have asked my mother, but didn't.

Alice died when I was a baby, and my mother and aunt were surprisingly reticent about her early life. I failed to ask the right questions at the right time, sensed a reluctance to talk about her and I ended up with vague and conflicting information - a classic family history mistake. It did occur to me that she might well have been illegitimate, but then her father's name of Henry was given on her marriage certificate. Was this a fabrication? 

Despite many years of hunting and using a professional researcher, I have been unable to trace a birth certificate for Alice to find out the name of her mother. Queries on message boards, Facebook pages, and on my blog have failed to elicit any positive responses, so I decided that it was time to review my research.  

WHAT WERE THE FACTS?

My starting point for research was the marriage certificate - Alice married my grandfather William Danson in April 1907, at St. Chad's Church, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, when Alice was 22. Her father's name was given as Henry, a painter (deceased).  I was always told Alice and I shared the same birthday - September 23rd. 

 William and Alice, 1916

The family story was that Alice had moved to Poulton (from Bolton, or was it Manchester?) as a nursemaid to the Potts family - prominent Methodists whose photographs featured in books on old Poulton, sitting on committees, opening fetes etc. Alice was confirmed at St. Chad's Church in 1904 - I have the dated prayer book presented to her on that occasion. Alice died in 1945. aged 60,  thus confirming  her year of birth as 1884. 

A long ago visit to the then St. Catherine's House, London failed to find a birth certificate with these details. Early census returns proved no help - I could not trace her in 1891. In 1901 there was an Alice A. English, born Bolton aged 17, so born c.1884, living-in domestic servants at Stockport. This could well be my grandmother, but does not help with any more information on her family.

I had to wait patiently for the release of the 1911 census to find her entry under her married name of Danson, with her birthplace given as Bolton. Yet even that did not take me further forward as Bolton Registrar had no record of an Alice English that matched. The improved search facility for BMD and parochial records online came up with a number of possibilities but none that tied in with my limited information. So more frustration! I also have had no luck in tracing a record for her father Henry English with very little to go on. The only Henry and Alice found in the census returns lived in Kent, and I traced this Alice's marriage - so no joy there. 

A further wait for the release of the 1939 National Register, where I was pleased to find that Alice's birthday of 23rd September 1884 was confirmed, but I had hoped for more details on her birthplace - but this  did not feature.

THE NEXT STEP 

I put a query on CuriousFox, the village by village contact site for anyone researching family history, genealogy and local history in the UK and Ireland. The immediate response was gratifying in number, but not particularly helpful, apart from one respondent who took on board my query with great enthusiasm and pointed me in certain directions I had not considered. 

Look at Alice's address on her marriage certificate: In 1907 she was at 7 Higher Green, Poulton which appeared to be a row of cottage, with no. 7 in 1901 the home of of William Wigan a 36 year old gas stoker with a wife and 6 children - so a crowded household. Ten years on in the 1911 census, there was no entry for no. 7. So this approach gave no clues.

Who were Alice's neighbours in 1911? One interesting factor was her next door neighbour - a Mrs Elizabeth Alice Ronson, also born in Bolton (37 miles away) and her husband was a house painter (as supposedly Alice's father). Intriguing! But no family connection could be found and there was only an 11 year age difference between Elizabeth and Alice.

The birth register for Bolton in late 1884 identified four births with the Christian names of Alice Ann. Research discounted three, leaving Alice Anne Walch.

Who was Alice Ann Walch? She doesn't turn up under that name on any censuses, marriage or death register. Who was her mother? A likely suspect was identified as a Mary Jane Walch who was, single, 19 years old in the 1881 census, a cotton spinner and living in Bolton as a boarder with her 6 months old baby Thomas. They were staying with the Lowe family and interestingly there was a daughter Alice A. Lowe aged 5 years old, so born 1876. But Mary cannot be traced thereafter. In 1891 Alice Lowe was 15 years old with a large number of lodgers in the household including a William Walch, born Ireland. The plot thickens! Neither this Alice nor William could be identified in the 1901 census.

THE CONCLUSION 

Confused? So am I!

I was very grateful for the way my Curious Fox respondent had taken up my query. She suggested that perhaps this Mary Walsh had another baby Alice who at some point changed her name from Walch, corrupted to Welsh - changed to English? It is an interesting theory, but I am sceptical. What do you think?
More recently I placed a query on the very helpful Facebook page of Genealogy Addicts UK & Worldwide Research Group - again a good response in terms of the interest shown in the mystery, but nothing positive emerged.

I later turned to the background of Alice's employers in Poulton - the Potts family. In 1901 they were living in Wales, but their children were born and baptised at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Bolton. So an interesting connection. 

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Among the family papers was this receipt paid by Alice on February 26th 1907 for: Two yards of bodice lining, hooks, silk sundries and bodice making. Was this her wedding outfit? It surely must have had sentimental value for it to be kept, and says something about Alice ?

Whatever the mystery about Alice's  past, the impression I gained from my Danson relatives was of a loving, loved wife and mother, and a respected member of the Poulton community. She became known locally as an unofficial midwife and her doctor wanted her to train professionally, but this was not possible.

Alice with her children, Edith, Kathleen (my mother), Harry & baby Billy, 1916.

It is  25 years on before another photograph of Alice  features in the family album. 


A frail looking Alice with her three daughters - Peggy, Edith and Kathleen

William and Alice at my parent's wedding in 1938.

Sadly Alice had  cataracts causing blindness - something that with today's modern medicine  can so easily be sorted - and she died in 1945.     It  would have been lovely to have known her. 

So my brick wall seems unsurmountable. Perhaps my mother and aunt were not forthcoming about their mother's past because they just did not know, or were embarrassed at what they found. 

This was an era when secrets were "best kept to ourselves".

                            Perhaps it is time to leave my brick wall to stand.

                         Based and updated from a post first published in 2012. 

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Join  Amy Johnson's Crow's Facebook Group  "Generations Cafe 
 to read posts from other bloggers taking part in
 the 2019  "52 Ancestors" Challenges

Join  Amy Johnson's Crow's Facebook Group  "Generations Cafe 
 to read posts from other bloggers taking part in
 the 2019  "52 Ancestors" Challenges

Making the Headlines: 52 Ancestors - Week 13

Old newspapers I have always found fascinating.  They are goldmines, full of snippets of information that give a contemporary eye view on many varied aspects of life at the time for ordinary people.  So Week 13 of "52 Ancestors" with its theme of "In the News" appealed to me. 

Image courtesy of Pixabay

How have newspapers helped my family history? 

I have found:

• A 1906 account of the funeral of my great grandfather James Danson (a local joiner) which included a list of chief mourners - in "The Fleetwood Chronicle & Fylde Advertiser":  28 September 1906. 

• A poignant account of the death of my great uncle George Danson at the Battle of the Somme in 1916  - again in the Fleetwood Chronicle.

• A lengthy, account of the weddings in the 1920's of my great aunt Jennie Danson and my mother's cousin Annie Danson - they are worth reading just for the journalistic "over the top" style in the description of the dresses - with such phrases as "gowned in delphinium blue georgette" and "Her hat was of georgette to tone with uneven pointed dropping brim, having an eye veil of silver lace and floral mount".    Do have a look at the links as they are great fun to read.
  
  
  
  
  

• On a sad note, I traced an account of a coroner's hearing  on the death of a distant ancestral connection - Haydon Lounds,  coach builder, who died of lead poisoning.

• Very recently local newspapers  provided me with a wealth of information on the court appearances of my husband's great grandfather, miner  Aaron Armitage, who led a life of crime from poaching and stealing a pig to assaulting the woman whom he later married.

• I came across in the death announcements this short but beautiful testimony to my g.g.g. grandmother Elizabeth (Betty) Danson, nee Brown.

"Betty, widow of the late Mr. Henry Danson, yeoman, Trap Estate, Carleton, near Poulton-le-Fylde. She was much esteemed, and will be greatly regretted by a large circle of acquaintances".
(Blackburn Standard:  Wednesday 20 May 1840)

These  few lines, somehow brought Elizabeth (or the more familiar Betty) alive for me, as no other record had done.  I knew little about Betty, but this description inspired me to write a blog post  on her life.  Read it HERE.
First important point:  I  found  these entries by doing a "county" search, rather than  specific town/village or specific newspaper title.  The results  were often in newspaper titles I would not normally have considered as covering my Lancashire village.  So it is worth widening your search beyond the obvious.

Second important point:   No doubt because of the cost, notices of births, marriages & deaths were often short merely stating - “On the 1st inst, a son named...."  with the mother’s name not always given!  Entries from the landed gentry and professions inevitably predominated, with reports on weddings and funerals  often lengthy.  

Death notices came from a more varied social background and could include information on the burial place and on the circumstances of death.   But unlike in America,  here in the  UK obituaries are usually reserved for prominent people who in some way had made their mark in their community.

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But even if you are unsuccessful in finding specific details on your own family, newspapers are an indispensable tool in providing you with that essential background material that can so enliven your family story.

• What was happening during the lifetime of your ancestors?  For instance - reports on  the coming of the railway or the opening of a cottage hospital,  which would impact on ordinary lives.
   
• Helping with your timeline,  you  should find reports of national and Internationale event including military campaigns abroad, court cases, politics, royal visits, etc.
   
• Accident reports (on roads, trains, in industry, by fire )  were often graphic. Reports during the First World War are particularly poignant as pages were filled with profiles of casualties.
   
• Regular  features throughout the year included  railway timetables, market prices, local shipping agents offering passages to America, Canada, South Africa, India, Singapore and Australia,  auction sales notices with lengthy details of estates and normal;"> contents on the market, bankruptcies, tradesmen, events such as balls and talks, and church activities plus new arrivals at shops from the last novel by Charles Dickens to India rubber boots.
• Advertisements, generally on the front page for maximum impact, offer a valuable source of information on all aspects of life. In “The Kelso Mail” of January 1804 the main advert informed readers of the signals that would be made across Berwickshire and Roxburghshire on the “enemy’s fleet appearing off the coast”, with the threat of a Napoleonic invasion.
   
  
• The classified adverts revealed households seeking housekeepers, cooks, parlourmaids, scullery maids, between maids, laundry maids.  But life was changing in 1916, with an advert for a "Lady Motor Driver" and a "Lady Clerk - not under 30, must be a first class typist and shorthand writer and experienced in filing and indexing". Also seeking work was a "Gentlewoman, excellent cleaner of plate....speaks French and Italian, with own portable Corona typewriter".

In rural areas, you will find lists of farm vacancies for shepherds, ploughmen, hinds, dairy maids, etc.,  particularly as communities moved on from holding hiring fairs. 
 

• Find out through adverts and articles  what your ancestors were eating, what was Christmas like in war-time, what was the well dressed lady wearing etc.

•  Front page advertisements in my local paper of 1889 promise:

"The constant desire is to supply goods of Reliable Quality  suitable for all classes of the parish." 

[Note:  that phrase "All classes of the parish" - you could not use that now!]

Also In  the field of fashion, draper, David Wallace,  advertised:

"An Immense and Magnificent Collection of every New and Fashionable  Dress Material....which for Variety, Superior Quality, Good Taste and Moderate Prices is unequalled in Earlston.

Tweeds in Cheviot, Homespun, Harris and Grampian makes, latest styles and newest mixtures, Black materials in great variety.

The latest novelties in Millinery, Flowers, Feathers etc.  Bonnets composed of Velvet and Jet, from 10s.6d to 25s.  The latest novelty in hats is Gladys in French Beaver, trimmed with Feathers.  All orders for this Department made up in the most Fashionable and Tasteful Manner." 

Note:   the reference to "black materials" - at a time when formal mourning wear was still the custom.  Somehow the name "Gladys" does not quite conjure up an image of a French beaver hat with feather

One article I came across advised on "The Home Treatment of Alcoholic Excess and the Drug Habit"- with no interference with social, business or other duties". Still topical today!

Other items which have caught my eye and inspired blog posts include:

• Female Fashions for December - 1805
• Woman's Age in the Census - 1891
• Slow Coach from Edinburgh - 1848
• A Society Wedding with a Tragic End - 1913
• A Female Navie - 1849

So enjoy browsing old newspapers - you never know what you might find! **********

Sources:

• British Newspapers Online 1710-1953 on the website Find My Past
  
  I chose this site , as I already had a subscription to Find My Past. I was delighted to find its wide coverage, that includes small weekly newspapers in rural areas, besides the obvious national titles.
• British Newspaper Archive  - Another popular site
• Contact your local archive centre or library relevant to your research. Most  hold copies oof old newspapers, often in microfilm versions, and also offer enquiry services and "look ups".  It  is advisable to have a good idea of date i.e. month and year, in case the collection is not indexed.
  

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The Hills are Alive: Sepia Saturday

Unusually  for me, a short response to  this week's prompt, but  I had  such  a good, fun match for the  photograph of a couple dancing in the open air.

My husband and daughter replicating  their act of  "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music".  It  is clearly winter, but no picturesque snowy alps on this grey cloudy skyline on a Scottish Borders hill.  Our dog has sensibly decided to run off out of sight of the camera at this point.

Our dog with a rather disapproving look at this show on the hill. 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity

to share their family history through photographs.

Click HERE to read how other Sepia Saturday have had fun
with this week's prompt photograph. 

The 12 Children of Robert Rawcliffe: 52 Ancestors - Wk.12

"12" is appropriately the prompt for week 12 of the "52 Ancestors" Challenge and I am writing about my great great grandfather Robert Rawcliffe of Hambleton, near Fleetwood, Lancashire. 

Family knowledge about the Rawcliffe line  was vague.  My mother knew little apart from the fact "granny" (Maria Rawcliffe) came from "over Wyre" i.e.north of the River Wyre - a network of small villages, but where exactly was not known, plus the fact she had two sisters, Anne who married a farmer and Jane who married a Fleetwood man named Riley. There was also an intriguing anecdote about Granny had a step-brother Jo Brekall.  So not a lot to  go on. 

Research through the  standard sources of certificates, census returns, Ancestry Family Search  and Lancashire Parochial Records Online  revealed  it to be a story of eight daughters, the early death of their mother;   a step mother  and four half-brothers and sisters - twelve children in all. They  illustrated the vicissitudes of Victorian life,  with infant deaths, illegitimacy, early widowhood, remarriages,  and the discovery  of my first emigrant ancestor seeking a new life in the  USA.

My great great grandfather  Robert Rawcliffe lived 1821-1904, dying at the age of 84. He married Jane Carr in 1846, with the following children born to the marriage.

 

1.  Anne (1847-1928) - was  the  first first of eight daughter. named after her paternal grandmother.  In the 1861 census  she was living   away from home as a 13 year old servant.   Aged about 25 she had an illegitimate daughter  Jane Alice,  and a year later married  gamekeeper Robert Roskell.  One of her three daughters was named Maria,   after her youngest (surviving ) sister, my great grandmother (I liked that link). But burial records revealed deaths in the family - infant twin son Matthew died at three weeks old in 1882 and eldest daughter Jane died in 1887, aged only fourteen;   with husband  Robert dying in 1894 at the young age of 42. 

 

By the time of  the 1901 Census, Anne, a grocer/shopkeeper  had  moved from a small rural village to the town of Fleetwood,  where she married her second husband John Jenkinson. She died   4 April 1928 and was buried, not in Fleetwood, but beside her first husband and young children at St. Anne's Church, Singleton.  Her age on her gravestone was given as 79. 

2.  Jane (1850-1926) - was the second daughter, named after her mother and paternal grandmother.  She married Thomas Riley in 1873.  The photograph below came from an internet contact descendant and shows four generations of their  family. 

 Jane Riley, nee Rawcliffe with her son George (left) grandson (Jack) and Jack's baby son George Robert who did not survive infancy. 

3.  Margaret (1852-1852)  -  third daughter was born 11th November 1852, but only lived for  three weeks, buried 4th December 1882.  

4. Alice (1853-1930)  - the fourth daughter was christened Alice Margaret, perhaps   in remembrance of the baby sister who had died a year earlier. In the 1871 census she was a domestic servant, and two years later married John Mason, a general labourer. Six children were born and then In 1886-87 the they  took the momentous decision to leave the fishing port of Fleetwood for the teeming tenements of Brooklyn, New York. where they had a further five children.  Alice is my blog success story, as my third cousin, a descendant of Alice's youngest daughter Florence, found my blog and gave me a wo.dnerful connection of stories and photographs.  

Alice Mason, nee Rawcliffe with her husband and  three of their eleven children

5. Jennet (1856-1902) - In 1873, 18 year old Jennet was a witness a the marriage of her sister Jane toThomas Riley, with the other witness Thomas's brother Richard.  Five years later Jennet and Richard married.  but happiness was short lived for Richard died in 1891 aged just 33. Jennet remarried a seaman, Edward Alexander Braham.  but again their marriage was cut short, with the death of Jennet in 1902 - the first of the five surviving  Rawcliffe sisters to die. 

6.  Maria (1859-1919) - my great grandmother is at the heart of my family history research and writing, featuring regularly on my blog. She married James Danson at the age of eighteen and ironically, as one of many sisters, went on to have ten sons (eight surviving infancy), and o.ne daughter Jennie. 

7.  Peggy (1861-1861)  - was the last of the Rawcliffe sisters to be traced. Her short life lasted only sixteen days. 

8. Martha (1863-1863) - the baptism entry for Martha was a puzzle, for she was given the middle name "Septima" meaning seventh daughter, - yet she was the eighth.  Also how did her parents, with Robert an agricultural labourer, and with Jane making their mark on their marriage certificate know about the Latin inspired name?  The third puzzle - why did my great grandmother Maria adopt the name Martha for many official records, including her marriage certificate?  Maria could hardly have remembered her baby sister.  

 So  Robert's wife, Jane, gave birth to eight  children in a sixteen year period   Jane was aged 44 at the birth of her youngest daughter Martha and died two years later, buried on 4^th May 1865, leaving her five  young daughters motherless at the ages of 6, 8, 11, 14 and 17.  Jane and her baby daughters were all buried at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hambleton.  Unfortunately there are no gravestones, and no listings in monumental inscriptions for Robert Rawcliffe's  family. 

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In 1875 Robert married his second wife Elizabeth Brekall, twenty years his junior and they had four children in six years:

9.  Grace (1876-?) - perhaps named after Robert's sister Grace.

10. John (1878 -?)  - perhaps named after  his maternal grandfather.

11. Robert (1879-1883) -  a record of Hambleton church recorded the burial of young 4 year  old Robert.

12.  Margaret (1881-?)

No baptism records were traced for this seocnd group of Rawcliffe children and more research  needs to be done into their lives. 

But there was a second dimension to Robert's second marriage.  For  Elizabeth Brekall came to the marriage with three children of her own - Dorothy, Mary Ellen, and Joseph (the Joe Brekall of my mother's family story).  I naturally assumed they were children of Elizabethan's first husband  - the  classic family history mistake  - do not assume!  For her wedding certificate to Robert identified Elizabeth as a spinster.  

One cannot help speculate on the circumstances that led Elizabeth tp bear three illegitimate children over a thirteen year span. The children were all baptised,  but no father named on the record. The earlier census returns showed that Elizabeth and her children were living with her parents, with her father an agricultural labourer, so times must have been hard. 

The 1881 census showed a crowded Rawcliffe household with father Robert 61, an agricultural labourer,   Elizabeth 41 and  six children, ranging from 2 months old to eleven. Ten years on it was depleted family with just Joseph and John, living at home. 

Robert,  senior was to live until the age of 83, buried at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hambleton 14th April 1904, twenty  one years after the burial of his young namesake son.  

 To use a term in current use, this was a  truly "blended"  family, 

of 12 half-siblings and 4 step-siblings. 

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