New Arrivals in my Family Tree : Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday's November theme is "New Arrivals" and I am looking at "new arrivals" in my family tree - this time my newly discovered great grandmother Alice Ann English, her four sisters, Mary, Elizabeth, Isabella and Harriet, and my great great grandparents  Charles English and Mary Harrocks. This is Alice Ann's research story.

My last post here told the  story of my newly discovered grandmother Alice English (below)  who had been my major brick wall for many years until I traced recently her birth and the name of her mother - Alice Ann English.  

              My grandmother Alice English (1883-1945)  in 1916

So who was my great grandmother Alice Ann?

 My starting  Point - Alice Ann  was admitted to Liverpool Board of Guardians Workhouse on 11th   September 1883,  with the information  that she was a single woman  aged 30, pregnant  and born in Beverly,Yorkshire in 1851. She gave birth in the Workhouse to my   grandmother Alice on 23rd September 1883. 

It proved quite easy to trace Alice Ann's life through census returns and BMD records -  the most noticeable feature the fact that she was never traced living with her daughter.   

Alice Ann was the daughter of Charles English, and Mary Harrocks who married in 1851.  But the censuses listed two daughters born before that date, Mary in 1844 and Elizabeth in 1848.  This  prompted me to look for an earlier marriage for Charles.  His first wife was Elizabeth Barker and they married in 1842, but sadly Elizabeth died only six years later, aged just 23, shortly after the birth of their second daughter.

Charles and his second wife had a further three daughters – Alice Ann in September 1851, Isabella Caroline in 1854 and Harriet Elizabeth in 1858.   

In 1861  9 year old year old Alice Ann was living with her family   in the town of Barnard Castle, County Durham, with father Charles a platelayer with a railway company.

Ten years on in 1871 saw the  family at 6 Sutton Bank Railway Cottages, near Hull, Yorkshire.  Alice Ann aged 19 was working as a milliner - an occupation she does not appear to have followed in later life.  

 But the 1870s saw three tragedies in the family.  Alice Ann's mother  Mary died in 1872, her father  Charles three years later in 1875, and her youngest sister Harriet died in 1879  aged only 12.  

By the time of the 1881 census, Alice Ann  now aged 29  had made a major move away from home and was living with her sister Isabella and her husband Thomas Horrocks  at 22 Dickson Street, Liverpool - her occupation a domestic servant.  

Two years later in the 13th September 1883,  Alice Ann of 25 Sun Street,  Liverpool admitted herself to the Liverpool Board of Guardians Workhouse.   On the 23rd September she gave birth to her daughter Alice (my grandmother).  Interestingly on the birth certificate which I obtained from the General Register Office,  (GRO),   Alice Ann could only make her mark in registering the birth.

Mother and baby were discharged from the Workhouse 29th December   1883 but who to and where  to remains a mystery.   

However on 11th September  1890,  the  Workhouse records,  (available on findmypast.co.uk) noted that 7 year old   Alice was readmitted to the workhouse along with an 8 month old baby May English,   and discharged the next day to Kent Street.  But there was a worrying statement that the informant on their  admission was "The Police  Book"  - what did that mean?   Liverpool Archives was unable to help on this point.  Then on the 18th September their mother Alice Ann was readmitted, but discharged the next day to a different address at Alma Sreet. 

So many unanswered questions on this period in Alice Ann's life!  Could I assume that baby May was her second illegitimate child?  Could the baby's name perhaps be Mary   - the name of Alice Ann's mother and eldest sister?    So far I have been unable to trace May's birth. 

I tried to find out more about the streets,  named in the  Workhouse records relating to Alice Ann.     They all seemed  to be in the dockland area of LIverpool,  near to the  Royal Albert Dock. Might there be directories that could help - I must follow this up. 

 By the time of the 1891 census, Alice Ann, had moved away from Liverpool.  She was  aged 39 and still single,  and was working as  General Servant – Domestic  at The Eden Orphanage. Higher End, Sharples, Bolton, Lancashire which provided care and support to Bolton's destitute orphans.  But where were her daughters?   - I have been unable  to trace Alice or May.  in 1891. 

https://www.bolton.org.uk/edenhome.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1901 - Alice Ann was still working at the orphanage, now as a cook.   Her daughter is thought to be the 17 year old Alice English   working as a living in domestic servant in Stockport.

 By 1904 daughter Alice was in Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire.   I was always told she had come to Poulton as a maid to the Potts family who were found to have Bolton connections. 

Three years later,  daughter Alice married my grandfather William Danson  at St. Chad's Church, Poulton.  Did her mother  Alice Ann  and other members of her  English family know about this event? We shall never know.   My mother never  gave any  indication of  any knowledge of her mother's relations.  The witnesses of the wedding were a local married couple, thought to be Danson family friends.

 St. Chad's Church, Poulton-le-Fylde, known for its carpet of crocuses in the Spring  and where Dansons were

baptised, married and buried.
Photograph taken by my uncle - Harry Rawcliffe Danson 

 

By 1911 Alice Ann was living with her eldest sister Mary and brother-in-law Henry Bonner  at 12 Beverley Road, Bolton.

Daughter  Alice for the 1911 census gave her birthplace as Bolton - so did that indicate a link in the town with her mother?   It could also be to erase the fact she was born in at a Workhouse  - often regarded as a stigma.  Bolton  was also cited as her birthplace in the  1921 census,

Alice Ann  died  in October, buried 11^th October in Tonge Cemetery, Bolton aged 65, with her last address  12 Beverley Road,  the home of her sister Mary.   

1916 was also the year her daughter saw her husband conscripted to fight in the First World War.

 William and Alice in 1916

My grandmother Alice with her daughters Edith and my mother Kathleen, young Harry and baby Billy.  A son  George did not survive infancy, and  daughter Peggy was born after the First World War to complete the family.  Did Alice Ann ever know about her grandchildren?

It was gratifying to trace my great grandmother's life and discover the names of my great great grandparents  Charles English and Mary Harrocks, and my great great aunts, Mary, Elizabeth,  isabella and Harriet.  Even better I found that I had DNA matches with three descendants of Isabella; contacted them and they all replied quickly, but could not  give me any  more information on my great grandmother, Alice Ann.  

Family history never comes to an end  - and  so the search continues for the early life of my grandmother Alice  and that of her mother Alice Ann. It is stories like this that make family history so fascinating a hobby!

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share
their family history and memories through photographs. 

This post was written in response to Sepia Saturday's prompt of "New Arrivals". 

Click HERE to see posts  from other Sepia Saturday bloggers. 

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Celebrating Success -Breaking hrough my Brick Wall!

DISCOVERING MY “ENGLISH“ ANCESTORS

 “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 maternal grandmother Alice English (1883-1945) remained a puzzle over many decades and quickly hit the proverbial brick wall.   Read on my  research tale.

THE BACKGROUND Alice married my grandfather William Danson of Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire in 1907 .  I had her marriage and death certificate with her age, so born around 1884.

 

1941 at a family wedding my mother's  Danson family - my aunt Edith, aunt Peggy, grandparents William  and Alice. my uncle Harry and my mother Kathleen.  

 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 great reluctance to talk about her and I ended up with vague and conflicting information – was she born in Manchester, Bolton or Liverpool?   - 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 English (painter deceased)   was given on her marriage certificate.  Was this a fabrication for the purposes of respectability? 

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.

Despite many years of hunting and using a professional researcher, I had 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 family history blog failed to elicit any positive response, and DNA provided no help.

Below  is one of the few photographs of Alice.  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.

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 i.e. born around  1884. Her father's name was given as Henry, a painter (deceased).
   
•  I was always told Alice and I  shared the same birthday - September 23rd. 
• The family story was that Alice  had moved to Poulton as a nursemaid to the Potts family - prominent Methodists whose photographs featured in books on old Poulton, attending civic functions,  opening  fetes etc.
  
• Alice was confirmed at St. Chad's Church, Poulton in 1904 - I   have the prayer book presented to her on that occasion.
  
  
  
• 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,  a living-in domestic servants at Stockport. This could well be my grandmother, but did  not help with any more information on her family.
  
• I had 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 the GRO  (General Register Office)  and Bolton Registrar had no record of an Alice English with the details I had.  The release of the 1921 census confirmed the Bolton statement.
  
• The 1939 Register compiled to  facilitate  the issue of ID cards and ration cards in the Second  World War confirmed Alice’s birthdate as 23^rd September 1884.  I had hoped for more details on her birthplace but these did not feature.  
   
• Alice  died  5th July 1945 1945,  so I never knew her.   Her age of 60  on the  death certificate again confirmed her year of birth as c. 1884. 

 

FURTHER SEARCHES

 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.  

I placed many queries on various websites  and message boards without  much success, though Lancashire Genealogy on Facebook gave me some useful pointers;  as did Curious Fox  the village by village contact site for anyone researching UK  family history.  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   But these avenues came to nothing.

THE DISCOVERY   

In 2024 I put a query on The Facebook page of FindMyPast Family History Forum  - and SUCCESS when a contributor asked if I had seen the entry for an Alice English born in the Liverpool Board of Guardians Workhouse   in 1883, with the crucial fact her birthday was the same as mine – 23^rd September.  Even better I was given the links to the workhouse records at Liverpool Archives, available on Find My Past.   This surely  was “my” Alice?  So I took out a monthly subscription to FMP to access these records.   The images of the entries were  poor  and I contacted Liverpool Archives who were very helpful with transcriptions.

 Alice’s mother, Alice Ann, a pregnant single woman, aged 30, born Beverley, Yorkshire  was admitted  to the Workhouse from 25 Sun Street, Liverpool on  13^th September 1883 and gave birth to her daughter Alice on September 23^rd,   baptised there into the Church of England the following day.

I obtained Alice’s birth certificate in a digital format from the GRO. It indicated that  her mother could only make her mark. 

 Mother and baby were discharged from the Workhouse 29^th December 1883   but,  unhelpfully, without any comment   indicating where they had been discharged to. 

Young Alice  was re-admitted  on 11^th September 1890 with “May (8 months)”, but discharged the same day with the nearest relative noted as Kent Street.   On 18^th September their mother Alice Ann was readmitted and discharged the next day, with the nearest relative noted as Alma Street. 

There is no indication about the reasons for 7 year old Alice’s readmission but under the section ‘By whose order admitted’ .  it appears to say ”Police Book”   -  a worrying statement.

It was frustrating to see that under the heading “Nearest Relative” , the answer in all the cases was not a person’s  name or a relation  but a street  name.  I have tried to find out a bit more about Sun Street,  Kent Street and Alma Street  and gather they were in the Dockland areanear the Royal Albert Dock.  Can I assume this was a crowded, poor housing area? 

Why had I failed  for so long to find Alice’s birth and the name of her mother?

·  I had always worked on the basis that Alice  was born around 1884, given her age at marriage  and death which occurred before her September birthday of that year.  Though surely in my searches I had  worked on the basis of a wider range for my searches?   

OOnce I had  what I thought was confirmation of her birthplace as Bolton. I used this detail in all my searches and online queries and discounted further suggestions of Manchester and Liverpool – a mistake!    

I II doubt if, in many queries  I had used the fact that  we shared the same birthday  - a fact which proved crucial in finding Alice. 

But lots  of questions remained

• Why did Alice give the Bolton birthplace name on official records?  What was her connection with Bolton?   (Later  research into her mother's life answered this question).
  
  
•  What were the circumstances that brought 7 year old Alice back to the Workhouse in 1890 with a reference to the police? Liverpool Archives were unable to give any help on this point.
   
• Was 8 month old baby May her sister, admitted to the Workhouse with Alice in 1890,  born around January 1890.  A birth record has not yet been traced. 
   
• Alice could not be traced  in the 1891 census, but an Alice Ann English (her mother) born Beverley, Yorkshire  was  traced to Eden’ Orphanage. Higher End, Sharples, Bolton, where she was working as a domestic servant.  So here was the Bolton connection. But with no sign of her daughter  young Alice. 
   

The good news is I found some shared matched with Alice's mother  on my DNA results to confirm I was on the  right tracks beyond the coincidence of our birthdays. The story  of my great grandmother  is  for another  blog post.

So the story of Alice English  and her mother is still ongoing.  But it  was a Special Occasion,  when I  got some answers to my long search for my grandmother.

 

My grandparents William and Alice in 1916 

 

PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE PAID OFF!

 

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      Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share
their family history and memories through photographs. 

This post was written in response to Sepia Saturday's prompt of "Special Occasions".

Click HERE to see how other Sepia Saturday bloggers are marking SPECIAL OCCASIONS

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A-Z Challenge: Famiily Traits - M for MYSTERIOUS

Theme for the A-Z Challenge 2023

Family Traits, Quirks and Characteristics 

M for MYSTERIOUS 

My maternal grandmother Alice English's early life 

 

 

 

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 maternal grandmother Alice English (1884-1945) remains MYSTERIOUS, and quickly hit the proverbial brick wall. 

 

A photograph of Alice held by several branches of the Danson family.  Could it be her 1907 wedding photograph, given she was wearing a corsage?

 

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 for the purposes of respectability? 

 

Was she born in Manchester or Bolton? There were family stories that her mother had been a matron, with some Irish connections; that Alice was orphaned and her uncle went off to America with her money and never called on her to join him, as arranged. 

 

My mother's cousins spoke highly of their "Aunt Alice" but could not help regarding her early life. 

 

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 failed to elicit any response, and DNA provided no help.

 

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. 
  
  
• 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, Poulton in 1904 - I have the prayer book presented to her on that occasion.
  
  
  
  
   
• Alice  died in 1945 so I never knew her.   Her age of 60  on the  death certificate confirms 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 with the details I had.
  
  
• 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.  
  
  
• 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 these did not feature.
  
  
• I put a query on CuriousFox, the village by village contact site for anyone researching family 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  - by looking at her address on her marriage; by seeing who her neighbours were in 1911; by tracking other Alice's born in Bolton c.1884.  But these avenues came to nothing.
  
  
  
•  The recently released 1921 Census confirmed Alice's age with a birth year of 1884 and place of birth Bolton.
  

The Conclusion from all this research  - that Alice was more than likely to be l legitimate and had she perhaps changed her name  at some point? 

 

 

Everything  I have heard of Alice in later life spoke highly of her. She  was well respected by family and friends.   She became known locally as an unofficial midwife and the doctor wanted her to train professionally, but this was not possible with her family commitments. 

 

 

 Alice with her three daughters - Peggy, Edith and my mother Kathleen, c.1940  

 

 My grandparents - William and Alice  at my parent's wedding in 1938

 

Sadly Alice developed cataracts and became blind - a condition which now with modern medicine can be treated so easily.    She died in 1945.

     

 

So the early life of my grandmother Alice English remains MYSTERIOUS 

 and I am no nearer climbing over that brick wall!

 

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 Onto N for NE'ER DO WELL 

 

 

 

 

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IN CASE YOU MISSED

A for ADVENTUROUS, B for BIGAMOUS, C for CRIMINAL,  D for DEVOUT

E for ENTERPRISING  & ESTEEMED,   F for FEISTY

  

G for GENIAL & GOOD LOOKING,  H for HEROIC    I  for INSOLVENT  

  J for "JOINER", K for KEEPER OF THE FAMILY ARCHIVES

L for LONG-LIVING 

 

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Q is for Questions, Queries and Quandrie A-Z Challenge 2020

Questions, Queries and Quandries are at the heart of our family history research. We can  generally find out the "who, where, and when" about our ancestor's lives, but the "why" remains a mystery and we can only hazard a guess as to motives.  

Why was 6 year old John Robert Donaldson left behind when his parents moved 350 miles south?

John, my husband's great grandfather,  was born in 1854, the son of Robert Donaldson, a shipwright, and Isabella Walton of South Shields, a town on the north east coast of England, dominated by the sea and maritime activity. An obvious next step in research was to find the family in the 1861 Census, but frustratingly, in the days before online records, this proved impossible to trace. Yet all the indications were that direct Donaldson descendants had remained in South Shields down the generations.

It was only much later the opportunity to do national searches online revealed that,  by 1861 Robert and Isabella were at Portsea in Portsmouth on the south coast of England. With them were two young sons Thomas, aged 4, born South Shields and one year old Frederick W. (Walton perhaps after Isabella's maiden name?) born at Portsea, indicating a move c.1857-1860. But there was no mention of their eldest son, John who would have been 6 years old. 


How had the family travelled 350 miles from South Shields to Portsea, by rail or more likely by sea? Was work the reason, with Robert now employed at Her Majesty's Dockyard as a shipwright? Why was John not with them? Many questions!

Back in South Shields, I returned to the 1861 census and found John's maternal grandparents, John and Hannah Walton, with the household also including their grandson John Robert Walton aged 6. This must be "my" John Robert Donaldson, mistakenly recorded in the census with the wrong surname. An entry in the 1871 census gave further confirmation - a John Donaldson, aged 16, born c.1855 was living at the home of his maternal uncle Robert Walton. Death records showed that John must have lost his grandparents (and his home) in 1868.

Eight year later John married Jane Elizabeth Rushton. and they had four sons - John Robert, Henry, Thomas, Frederick and one daughter Isabella. Interestingly these names echoed those of his siblings in Portsmouth. For Robert and Isabella had more children - Thomas, Fredrick, Henry, Robert, Charles, Isabella and Alfred.

The fact that John retained the name of his father and mother for his eldest son and daughter suggests that the split had been amicable. One cannot help wonder did the two families ever meet again.

Why was Maria Rawcliffe, my great grandmother, recorded on her birth certificate as  Maria,  but  in later official records, called "Martha Maria"  - on her 1877 marriage certificate, her 1881 census entry, her burial record and my grandfather's  1907 birth certificate?  

This was a puzzle, as Maria's granddaughters,  who were still alive,  referred to her as Granny Maria.

Further research established that Maria's youngest sister was christened Martha, born  20th January 1863, and died 22nd May 1863.  Maria would only have been just three  years old then, so could hardly have remembered  her youngest sister.   Moreover their mother Jane died two years later, so could not have kept the memory alive of baby Martha for very long for  her other daughters. So why did Maria adopt her name along with her own?  We shall never know!

Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe (1859-1919)
with her only daughter Jennie (after 8 surviving sons) 
and granddaughter Annie Maria

Why did Maria's sister Alice and family (husband John Mason, a general labourer,  and six children under 11 years old)  emigrate  from Fleetwood, a fishing town in Lancashire to Brooklyn, New York in 1886-7.  

No Rawcliffe family had connections with New York. Alice and John had a further five children in New York (three dying in infancy).   My big blog success story was a descendant making contact with me and contributing  stories and photographs on the family.

But no light  was shed on the decision to emigrate.  I must investigate John's family to see perhaps if anyone had gone ahead to persuade them to make the leap to a new life in America. 

Alice and John Mason and their eight surviving children c.1920's

Why cannot I trace the birth certificate of my grandmother Alice English, born c.1884 in Bolton, Lancashire?  

Alice is my major brick wall that I have written about a few times on my blog.  I would love to find out the name of her mother, but despite exploring various avenues, sources, social media,  and message boards etc., her early life before she married my grandfather remains unknown.   I cannot trace a birth certificate and In one possible cesnus entry she is a live in domestic servant - so no help there.

The 1911 census cites her birthplace as Bolton, and the 1939 register gives her date of birth as 23rd September 1884, confirming what I was always told that we shared he same birthday.  But Bolton Registrar has no record of her. I am still hunting!  

These Questions remain mysteries and I may never know the answers - another factor that makes family history so absorbing.  But I am still on the Quest - and not for Quitting!

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