Genealogy Chat

Thanks for all your words of encouragement. Unfortunately there are no wills to help me out with this one but as you say one day maybe something will turn up. I have been searching for nearly 15 years so what's a few more? I think I will go back to the baptism register to double check that I didn't miss anyone or if Charles was entered with the wrong surname or something. I have already checked all the neighbouring parishes. If Caroline is not Charlie I wondered if they could be twins - they do run in my family. Could there have been complications and he been born in a hospital? There must be other avenues to explore. Dave, yes I know about the Flewers group. Me and some other contacts I made on here set it up last year. Lyla

Hy Lyla Have you seen the Flewers surname Yahoo Group http://groups(.)yahell(.)com/group/Flewers/ why won't GR allow Y a h o o , crazy people ? dave

Hi Lyla, Don't give up. I have a family where I thought there was no space for any other kids, and yet I had a chap I felt sure was theirs too. There were 10 children altogether, they were all baptised in the same church, but he appeared from nowhere, yet according to the census he was born in the same village as all the others. They were the only family there of that name. Then one day I got hold of copies of 3 wills - the fathers, the mothers and one of the sons. There he was! mentioned in all three........son and brother! From the census and his age at burial, which all gave a consistent year of birth, he would have been squeezed in between the 8th and 9th kids, and a quick calculation leads me to believe that there probably only about 11 months between him and his siblings on either side. Well she was pretty fertile! and there was less than two years between most of the others. Could be that he was baptised, but the register that's survived may well be a copy of an older one. The original could have been falling apart or consist of loose leaves etc and if the info was transcribed into a new register, he could have just been left off by mistake. I also have another family who I always believed had 6 kids, but then I found a settlement examination which stated that their were 9 living children - I've never found baptisms for these other 3. As mentioned, non-conformity was gaining popularity, and had been since the late 1700s. I now know that there was an independant chapel nearby, but the records haven't survived......I have people who could be these three, but no proof to date. So don't give up, sounds to me like your gut feeling is probably right.....and one day the proof might turn up when you least expect it......so keep on pluggin'! Best wishes Carole

it's odd they would skip a baptism and then carry on with the next child without catching up. That missing baptism might be out there somewhere There was a lot of church building going on at the time. There was a committee handing out grants for new C of E churches, the non-conformists were becoming respectable and attracting middle-class money, and the Catholics were re-establishing themselves. People were suddenly faced with a lot of choices, and they experimented. Also, there was grant money to demolish existing churches for rebuilding, where the population was growing, so even loyal parishioners might be forced to go somewhere else for a time

And I have son Larry who actually turned out to be daughter Fanny!

Arthur/Bertha - well they do sound a bit similar! I have really come to despise this man. I purchased his marriage certificate in 1991 and yet I still haven't traced him any further back. All my hopes were pinned on the 1841 census and now I'm at a total loss as to where to look next:(

By the way, Lyla, I forgot to mention earlier that I have one family of rellies with a daughter Bertha who only appears on one census - on all the rest she is replaced with a son Arthur the same age that Bertha would have been! Kate.

Dave, it was really kind of you to look through book 14 for me. I should have mentioned that I do have a copy of the 1841 census. Thanks to everyone else too. I now feel a little bit of hope that Caroline could really be Charles. These are the dates of the baptisms and their ages in the census. I can't see that there is room for another child. Samuel - May 1825 (1841 aged 14) Amelia - Mar 1827 (not on 1841) John - May 1828 (1841 aged 12) Caroline about 1830 (1841 age 10) Ann - Mar 1832 (1841 aged 8) Matthew -Jan 1837 (1841 aged 4) Emma about 1839 (1841 age 2) Eliza - Mar 1842 I just can't think of any way to prove that my Charles belonged to this family. Why does he have to be the only one missing from the baptism register? Lyla PS Charles fell down the stairs and broke his neck in 1888 - serves him right!

Lyla Pat kindly mailed me the reference, it quite clearly says Caroline with 10 in the female column, but still possibly a copying mistake between the original schedule completed by the householder and the enumerators return. If you look at the child below 'Caroline' you can see an error where the age has been overwritten. The poor old enumerator having done his day job, had to issue and collect the census returns in some cases where the household were illiterate completing the form for them. Then trudge home and copy the details into his book, with a scratchy dip pen and bottle of ink possibly be candle or oil lamp light, and remembering all the time to round the ages down to the nearest 5 except when the person was 15 or under. I've seen some census books where there are two sets of handwriting, where probably one of the elder kids had given dad a hand with his homework. Bound to have a few errors creeping in. I've checked all book 14 in case Charlie was with a neighbour but no luck. happy hunting dave

Lyla - as far as I know, the 1841 census doesn't give relationship to head of household, so Caroline could be some other relation other than daughter. Also, the ages given on censuses aren't always that accurate, especially on the 1841. Charles could well have been away from home that night so I wouldn't worry too much. Out of 13 children in one of my ancestral families, only 7 were at home on census night in 1841 (including the oldest, aged 19, rounded down to 15 on the census). Kate.

I think I might have found them in 1861 :) I'll look more when I get home.

LOL. when my cousin sent for the brickmakers index she received all the information my mum had sent him a few years earlier! I'm still trawling 1851 in search of Charles. I do have John & Susan and a few of the children who by now have relocated to Poplar (where Charles eventually lived). Got to pack up and go home now so I'll have a think about all this on the train. Thanks very much for your input. Lyla

Brenda, thanks for that interesting snippet about brickmakers. I did notice that the 12 year old son was already working as a brickmaker. Irene, I had a quick look at FreeBMD etc for a Caroline and couldnt see a marriage or death which is encouraging although Flewers is a very very mistranscribable name. Thankyou all. Feeling a little bit better now :)

Have you found Charles in 1851? If not, I'd suggest hunting him down. Since he didn't marry till 1854, he should be still at home. He could, of course, be a lodger or visitor somewhere.

Check out this website. It is largely for brickmakers south of the Thames, but may have useful links/suggestions www.davidrcufley.(b)tinternet(.)co(.)uk/brickintro.html Brickmakers would live in temporary accomodation where the brickfields were and this may be why you haven't found your Charles so far.

Dave thankyou. There is some hope after all! I havent been able to find Charles baptism anywhere and so the 1841 was going to be the only way I could prove that these are his parents. I really dont know where to go from here - any ideas?

Finger crossed for you Lyla but so many mistakes on the census anything could be wrong. I have found many females down as sons and sons down as daughters. Could be a mistake. Best check for this young lady is later census and BMD. Good Luck Irene

Brickmakers were very close-knit families. The whole family would be involved in brickmaking: the children from a fairly young age. They would work like crazy in the summer months, and hope their earnings would keep them through the winter. Having seen a census return where a mysterious Clarence appears, while there is no sign of Florence the only daughter, I'd definitely subscribe to enumerator error in this case. (He was probably being a smarty-pants with Carolus and then forgot how clever he'd been)

If Pat sent you the image and it does read Caroline with the age in the female column, don't give up entirely, I believe the images we see are copied from the schedules which were detroyed after copying. Carolinus is the Latin version of Charles so could be someone was being a bit posh and it was miscopied. dave

Really? Carolinus means Charles? That would be brilliant! I think it definately said Caroline and her age was written in the female column. Maybe Charles looked like a girl? I'm clutching at straws aren't I? Unfortunately I'm at work so I can't give you the ref no. just yet. Thanks Lyla