Willed away

Somewhat cheaper than my foray into propping up the government with my certificate order (£210), the 14 wills I lately purchased weighed in at 'only' £70.

In fact one of them wasn't even a will but a single sheet grant of administration, purchased to learn the address of the intestate lady's nephew Arthur Ward in Peterborough.

This was one of the seven wills (and grant) which I would class as very useful, the remainder letting me down as follows
1) no relatives were named
2) no mention of the testator's sister or her family
3) very cryptic with no relationships given and no clue as to where people fitted into the tree, if at all
4) everything was left to a known individual

BUT on the whole the seven that were very useful led me to major family history breakthroughs
1) to living descendants of Emily Padfield (Hemmings) who have photos, stories to tell and an interest in family history
2) to the only known descendant of Sergeant Stephen Read by his Cornish wife, through Quebec, Glasgow, Liverpool, Clevedon and now Denmark
3) finally a lead to the family of Henry Young of Andover and his wife Lucy, whose 15-odd children born in the late 1800s had proved surprisingly difficult to bring down to the present day
4) closing the door on the 'spinster' daughters of my Charles Warren of Maperton, two of whom had taken husbands late in life in locations I would not have expected and could not have traced
5) a small step forward in finding Tom Garner's family.  I could have got their address way back in 1993 when I first learnt about the Garners from Dad's cousin Tom, however I had no idea then, that they were related.  Still this will moves me slightly closer to regaining this lost address
6) the wonderful will of Rowena Homily, three-times married and of uncertain parentage.  No clue who many of the recipients are, but I'm sure we'll find out as we zone in on the records.
7) the address of Arthur Ward as above

Most of the 400 wills I've bought (and seen many more) were acquired at least ten years ago when they were practically free, but I'm confident I'll be using this great resource again soon, adding as they do so much colour to our family trees.  (And no-one really knows much about how to use them, yet!)

Truly certifiable

The price of birth, marriage and death certificates took a hike recently from £7.00 to £9.20.  So I decided it was time to donate a pot of gold to the government and buy a lot of certificates while they still cost less than a starter at the Ivy.

Of the thirty certificates I ordered I had problems with seven:

1) Joseph Carter born 1919 Hull turned out not to be the son of Minnie Hebbard but of Gertrude Hebbard.  This was carelessness

2) Robert Gray born 1924 Salisbury turned out not to be the son of Mary Annie Maidment but of another Miss Maidment.  This too was carelessness

3) Jane A Gibson died 1923 Kendal was not mine - I'd not combed the death indexes properly so mea culpa again

4) William McKee died 1927 in Liverpool turned out not to be mine - but it was tough to have known for sure, so I'll let myself off here

5) Irene Antony died 2002 - they sent me the wrong certificate (which they are going to replace, though it's taking two months, there's no rush)

6) Catharine Creed married 1871.  I mistakenly ordered the certificate under her married name of 'Bell', so this is another wasted buy - though they did refund me £3

7) Alice Dauncey married 1917 wasn't my Mabel Alice but another woman.  I couldn't have known for sure though, so I'm glad I got this document.

Two further death certificates gave me precious little information as the partner was still living, or the deceased person was living in a nursing home with no named heirs.

The remaining 21 certificates were all full of useful information.

The BIRTHS gave me address, father's occupation, child's date of birth

Child's date of birth ought to have been stunningly useful, to enable me to find their subsequent death using this search field and their first names.  But there were NO Ethels born 20 Aug 1908, Kathleen 14 Jan 1917 nor Patricia 8 May 1923.  Very unhelpful and mildly vexacious!

The DEATHS gave me cause of death, family unit reconstruction, address, brother (brother-in-law) and children's address, circumstances of death, occupation, maiden name and new family information

The MARRIAGES gave me the leads I needed to move confidently forward with researching my five relatives Tamar Barnett, Ada Bray, William Samuel Jones, Rita Smith and Mavis Wood.

I had already contacted Ada's grandson but now I knew for sure he was a relative.

I was able to find Mavis living in East Grinstead so despatched a letter to her.

I couldn't find Rita Smith, but I was able to work out details of her husband's parents and brother which will help track her down.

And Tamar married into the Thompson family of Ancliffe Hall, so more details are expected in time.

In preparing my (flawed) list of thirty certificates, I did rule out 5-10 other buys, which I figured I could avoid by pursuing other, cheaper, genealogical search angles.  Further, I wanted to wait a couple of years until GRO certificates pre 1900 will finally be free, or very nearly.

I will avoid hitting the 'make payment now' button for quite some time on the GRO website, which in any event was truly Cthulian in its labyrinthian ordering structure.

Pearsed pride

I feel duty bound to report on a clue which was just trying to get itself in my head.
Ann Pearce is living with her father, aged 31, in 1841, or so it seems.
Here is the census entry:

1841 Church Town Lanteglos-by-Fowey HO107/153/9 fo19 p7
William Pearce 70 farmer, Ann 31, Susan 30, Edward 21, Emma 20, Fanny 15 (all b Cornwall), plus servants

It turns out though that I wasn't reading the census entry correctly.  Ann had actually gotten married the previous year to Thomas Pearse, of Bodmin, and sure enough they are living together in 1851.

You wouldn'a thunk it, but Ann Pearce was Ann Pearse in the 1841 census.....

you go and save the Hester last

Alright so Amy Dunkerton had already amazed me. She died in 1831 in Pilton, Somerset aged 40 but that hadn't stopped her fiesty daughters from carving their own futures:
* Caroline Amelia, married 1847 St James Piccadilly to a waiter
* Charlotte, married 1838 Sussex Gardens to a jeweller
* Sarah, married 1842 St Pancras Euston Road to a police constable

Excuse me weren't these ladies supposed to be home by five o'clock and what pray were they doing in London. Shouldn't they have been making sheep's eyes at the local farmer's sons back in Summerzet?

I have spent several dozen man-hours following up on the London descendants, and now for something unexpected.

The girls' father William Dunkerton left a will in 1855 and had then six daughters living, so in particular what had happened to the youngest, Hester? Died? Married young THEN died? Where was the marriage.

She'd married at St John's Chester (of course?!) in 1856 aged 31, to a young innkeeper and gone to bring up another slew of daughters at the Rossett Bridge Inn between Wrexham and Chester before dying ten years later (neatly avoiding most censuses). Thank you http://pilot.familysearch.org for this useful marriage entry.

These girls were every bit as interesting as their mother and aunts, here they are:
* Esther married 1886 Chester St John, a plumber of BANGOR
* Mary Ann married 1882 Wrexham, a tailor of WREXHAM
* Eleanor married 1884 Manchester, a labourer of NANTWICH
* Caroline married 1892 Islington, a restaurant cook of LUTON

Thanks to this lost and missing marriage entry I now have relatives in eastern Cheshire and in North Wales which is new and exciting territory.

One of the granddaughters was called Nellie Evans, but she proved absurdly easy to trace in Wrexham, to a sad death aged 29 in childbirth. I think I have had a very blessed couple of hours researching and should probably quit while I'm ahead.