Family History Fun: Rawcliffe Family

"Portraits" is the theme for this month's Sepia Saturday posts and I am beginning with a profile of my great grandmother Maria Rawclilffe (1859-1919).

I find it difficult to date this photograph - could she be around 40, so taken around 1909? I would welcome any other thoughts.

Researching the Rawcliffe family was my first venture into family history and I was puzzled by a number of issues relating to Maria.

Mystery One

Maria's two granddaughters (who are still alive) always referred to her as "Granny Maria" and her baptismal entry just gives the single Christian name. But there was a puzzle in that many official records, such as Maria's 1877 marriage certificate, the 1881 census entry, her 1919 burial record and my grandfather's 1907 birth certificate all gave her Christian names as "Martha Maria". I sent away to the local Registrar for Maria's birth certificate c.1859 and outlined my confusion over her Christian name.

To my great surprise the result was two certificates - for Maria, daughter of Robert Rawcliffe and Jane Carr of Hambletlon, Lancashire born 15th January 1859 and another daughter Martha, born to Robert and Jane on 20th January 1863.

Four months later baby Martha died. Maria would only have been four 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

Mystery Two

Early on in my ancestral trail, I turned to Family Search and was delighted to find entries for my Rawcliffe family, including the name of "Martha Septima" . This intrigued me - seventh daughter after Anne, Jane, Margaret, Alice, Jennet and Maria.

But how did her Ag. Lab. father and mother who only could make their marks on their 1846 marriage certificate, come to know this Latin tag? On Maria's birth certificate of 1859, Jane again is noted only for making her mark, but there is no such indication on Martha's entry.

These were the days on Family Search when the name was given of the submitter of the information - an American address and I suspect a descendant of Maria's sister Alice who emigrated to USA. I did write but the letter came back "unknown", so very frustrating. Many years later I traced the American connection, but no-one has come up with any clue to the "Septima" name.

The only other record I have found mentioning "Septima" was on Ancestry in the Lancashire, Church of England Births and Baptism.1813-1911.

Mystery 3

The puzzle does not end there, as both the Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project (OPC) and Family Search record the baptism of a Peggy Rawcliffe, born 1861 to Robert and Jane, which means Martha would not be the seventh child but the eighth. Sadly Peggy survived only 16 days.

So baby Martha may have had only a very short life, but her legacy lived on in the name of my great grandmother.

************

Bull Street, Poulton-le-Fylde, just off the Market Square was the home of my great grandparents James Danson and Maria Rawcliffe and their large family of eight sons, one daughter and later orphaned granddaughter Annie. In their early married life, my grandparent also lived in the same block. In the 1960s, Bull Street was demolished to make way for a small shopping mall.

Maria with her only daughter Jennie (1897-1986) and in front her granddaughter Annie Maria, who following the death of her young mother, made her home with Maria.

Maria here with her eldest granddaughter Annie Maria Danson, born 1905. Annie looks to be about 13 years . So this photograph can be dated to around 1916 when Maria would be 57.

The early 20th century was a sad time for Maria, with her death of her husband, eldest son, daughter in law (mother of Annie above) and two sons, killed in the First World War. Maria died aged 60 in 1919.

But the family still have memorabilia from Maria's life - her kettle, and her teaset and some jewellery.

Complementing the kettle was a tea set which is now with Maria's granddaughter. Maria was very proud of the teaset which she got from collecting coupons from a newspaper offer.