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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: catanaccio on Monday 06 July 09 09:28 BST (UK)
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We have a mystery which is holding up our research.
My wife's 2xgreat-grandmother was brought up, we believe, by a family member after the death of her parents. By powers of deduction we think she was born between April and December 1869 in either Salford or Hulme in Manchester but don't know her name when she was born. We know her as Catherine Morgan but she may have been neither a Morgan nor even a Catherine when she was born ... the man who brought her up was a Morgan but there is a possibility she was a Roberts or even something different still!
We are happy to go through all parish records for the areas in question looking for clues but this would be helped if we can find out what she claimed to be her date of birth. No living relatives can (or will!) help us.
Does anyone have any idea of old records that we may be able to find that would give a date of birth? Catherine died in 1956 so our obvious starting point will be NHS records ... does anyone know if it is possible to access historical data from the NHS?
Any suggestions would be welcomed.
Ian.
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Hi Ian
I'm assuming that info on her marriage certificate lists her adopted father.
Given all your unknowns, my first thought would be to investigate the 'family member' who brought her up- looking at his siblings/parents and wife/siblings/parents, the cousins, etc.
This might lead you to a possible mother and father for Catherine and thus to a birth cert.
Regards
Gadget
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Are the people who brought her up a Daniel and Bridget Morgan? There is a 10 mth old Catherine living with them on the 1871 in Manchester, St Michael - listed as daughter:
RG10/4052 F 78 P 19
Gadget
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Thanks Gadget but, sadly, the adoptive parents were not Daniel and Bridget.
The history as we know it, a good deal of which comes from an aged great-aunt with quite a good line in historical embellishment, is as follows:
Catherine, if that was indeed her name at birth, was born in Salford or Hulme (although there is also a suggestion of a connection with Rochdale) in or around 1869. She was the daughter, we are told, of a young Welsh girl who was in service in the area. Her surname may have been Roberts. Apparently the Welsh girl had “a liaison" with the son of a nobleman who was visiting the house at which she worked. She fell pregnant and had the child. For whatever reason she and the father were, at some point later, in a caravan in the grounds of the house when a fire killed them both. The child (who we know as Catherine) was taken back to Wales and brought up by William Morgan and his wife. His wife is probably the mother (by an earlier marriage) of the girl who gave birth to Catherine. Hence we heavily suspect that the people who brought her up were her maternal grandmother and her second husband, whose surname she took. They are shown as a family in the 1881 Census.
Even allowing for 50% of it to be embellished you would think we had enough to find her but, to date, she has eluded us.
We are looking for:
a) Who was her mother?
b) In what name, if at all, was she registered
c) What was the house in which her mother was in service?
d) When, if legend is correct, were her parents killed
We are hoping that by finding her actual date of birth we can search the local parish records for the correct area and the correct period to find a possible birth certificate which might move our research on a little bit!!
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This is odd - I don't see a suitable one afterwards :-\
Where do you first find her?
Gadget
added - just seen your reply and the Welsh bit and the Roberts - what part of Wales. Roberts is primarily a North Wales surname
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The suspected grandmother was called Alice Jones (b. 1814 Tremerchion, Flintshire). She was first married to Thomas Roberts and secondly married to William Morgan. She appears to have had six children with Thomas. We suspect one might be the mother of Catherine but we are not sure which! They are Mary (c. 1838), Elizabeth (c. 1840-c. 1845), Anne (c. 1843), Margaret (c. 1844), Eliizabeth (c. 1846) and Thomas (c. 1849)
The Morgan family (William and Alice) lived, with the mysterious Catherine, at 153 Wellington Road, Rhyl in 1881. Also had connections with the village of Dyserth. Alice was too old to have been Catherine's natural mother (would have been 55 at birth).
We have them in 1871 but without Catherine. Equally we then lose Catherine again for 1891 before picking her up with her own husband (Herbert Jones) and family in Meliden in both 1901 and 1911.
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Ah - Flintshire - one of my areas :D
We have a very helpful member on here who is a whizz at the Hawarden records office so I'll try to contact him about this thread.
A considerable numbr of young women from both Flintshire and Denbighshire went to Manchester to do domestic service, including my own direct line female ancestors.
Have you followed up all of Alice's Roberts daughters?
I'll see if I can find anything and hopefully Paul might find something as well :)
Gadget
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I've just been looking at the 1861-1881 censuses
In 1861, the only daughter at home is Elizabeth, aged 15. Have you followed her through to 1871 and beyond? Also, what about Mary, Ann and Margaret?
Was the marriage to Alice William Morgan's first marriage?
Gadget
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Thanks for the interest you are showing and for passing things on to your "Hawarden records" expert.
OK. Here is what we have got. Some might be relevant, some not!
Of the children of the Jones-Roberts marriage we have:
1) Mary (c. 1838) ... married John Wilcock (in 1862) and lived in Rochdale. Unlikely to be the mother as already married at the time.
2) Elizabeth (c. 1840) ... died before 1845.
3) Anne (c. 1843) ... 1851 census as an eight year old in Dyserth ... then disappears.
4) Margaret (c. 1844) ... married John Cunnah (in 1865) and lived in Meliden. Unlikely to be the mother as already married and no known links to Lancashire.
5) Elizabeth (c. 1846) ... 1851 census in Dyserth; 1861 census in Rhyl ... then disappears.
6) Edward (c. 1849) ... 1851 census in Dyserth; 1861 census in Rhyl; 1871 census in Meliden.
The children were all born in Dyserth.
According to the marriage of Alice Roberts (nee Jones) and William Morgan on 9 Dec 1854, William was a bachelor and Alice a widow. They went on to have two sons, William (c. 1855) and Thomas (c. 1858).
Catherine, our mystery woman, was taken to Wales after the alleged deaths of her parents and brought up by the Morgan family. She supposedly had a good quality education paid for by the family of her father (the owners of the house at which her mother worked). Reliable sources suggest that on a monthly basis she was visited by a "grand lady" in a "coach and four" ... we think this may be her paternal grandmother. This is the Lancashire family that supposedly paid for her upbringing.
Again, we are told that she was educated at a convent school in north Wales but we have not been able find any hard evidence of this. She was though very well mannered, bilingual in English and Welsh and gave the impression of having had better than a standard education. If we could do so then perhaps school records might shed light on who was paying for her education and help crack our mystery.
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Just reading this begs the question, of course, of whether the lady in the "coach and four" was part of the family from the house ... or was related to the supposed father who was supposedly a visitor to the house.
The stories we are told are a little ambiguous ... and seem to get more so as the people recounting them get older and older!!!!
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Hello folks
This one sounds like fun!
Ian - have you got Catherine's marriage certificate, and if so - what does it say?
Kind regards, Arranroots ;)
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So we have Ann b. 1843 and Elizabeth b. 1846 as the possible mothers.
I would guess that the Meliden parish records would be a good place to look, in case Catherine was baptised by the family when she was taken back to Wales.
Was Elizabeth possibly the one who married Roger Hughes?
see 1871:
RG10/5667 69/30
Roger Hughes, 25, b. Dyserth
Elizabeth, 25, b. ditto
(they possibly married in Liverpool in 1870).
In 1881 they have a "nephew", William Roberts b. about 1862 who I don't know that I can place with your family, though.
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Hi there, Arranroots.
"Fun" is certainly one word for it ... "frustrating" and "mystifying" are among the ones we have used more regularly, though!!!!!
Yes, we have Catherine's marriage certificate.
14 Oct 1896, St. Thomas' Church, Rhyl.
Herbert Jones, age 29, bachelor, a labourer, Rhyl, son of Herbert Jones, a labourer.
Catherine Morgan, age 26, spinster, Rhyl, daughter of William Morgan, a carrier.
Witnessed by Thomas Morgan and Elizabeth Morgan.
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Thanks Ian - Gadget's assumption was correct then - just checking as it hadn't been explicitly stated.
Will have another look this evening, if you haven't cracked it by then!
Kind regards, Arranroots (out to lunch)
;D
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How about looking for newspaper reports of the fire? If a son-of-a-nobleman was killed I expect it would have been reported.
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Good idea Meriel!
Ian, to save some time - Catherine's place of birth in 1881 is Rhyl - is this consistent in later censuses?
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Good idea Meriel!
Ian, to save some time - Catherine's place of birth in 1881 is Rhyl - is this consistent in later censuses?
Hi AR :)
I noticed that and wondered where the Manchester birth info came from. Unfortunately, I then went off line because of a huge thunderstorm and have only just got back on to this thread.
If she was born Rhyl, Paul will be able to find any possible baptisms :)
Gadget
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My concern was identifying the right girl, since MORGAN is such a "popular" name!
(You'll see from my signature that I have my own MORGAN families)
:)
Note that the 1881 neighbour with a very long name comes from Manchester!
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Hi Ian
Have you checked out the Letitia Catherine Morgan reg Sep Q 1868 St. Asaph District at all?
How much do you know about William Morgan's family? Could your mystery Catherine have been a niece on his side of the family?
I also have Morgan/s in my tree. I always search with or without an "S" when looking in Welsh records as my lot seemed to switch back and forth on the spelling ;)
Heather
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Have found this very intriguing!!
Just a couple of thoughts (for what they're worth!!!)
If Catherine's mother was a daughter from Alice' first marriage then the birth would be registered as Roberts and not Morgan, unless Catherine was registered with the father's name.
Has Catherine, and William and Alice been found on the 1911 census. Maybe other rellies might be there to narrow the search a little.
Paula
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No, not at all. As I said in the earlier posts the strength of evidence is on her being born in either Salford or Hulme in Manchester.
She was an educated woman and, when she would have been old enough to contribute to the census information herself (i.e. in 1901 and 1911) she always referred to being born in Lancashire. Equally she spoke with relatives about her Lancashire heritage and her pride that as she was not Welsh-born that she was fluent in the Welsh language.
It was only in 1881 when her adoptive father would have provided information for the census that her birth place was shown as Wales. We assume this was for convenience or to reduce any scandal or intrigue caused by the Morgan family bringing up a young girl who was clearly not their own.
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Are Alice and William still around in 1911?
Did Catherine have any children by 1911 and if so, are they all accounted for?
Wish I lived up that way, would have loved to trawl through the local papers for the time!!
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It would be helpful if you would provide more information about the census - even if only the references - but I am still left wondering: how do you know that the girl in 1881 is yours??
???
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Thanks for your input WifeyWebb.
We have done a fairly thorough search for the birth as a Roberts (the maiden name of the likely mother) and have not been successful. Obviously we have looked for Morgan registrations too but we feel this is unlikely as the Morgan link only seemed to come in when she moved back to Wales.
We have searched around Hulme, Salford and Rhyl to no avail. We are hoping that if we can find the date of birth we can focus in a little more closely. We are not even 100% sure that originally the child was called Catherine ... that may have just been a name given she was "adopted" back to north Wales ... as this is reputed to have taken place at quite a young age.
The difficulty, if the family folklore is right, is that the liaison with the son of the visiting nobleman appears to have been a touch more serious than just the normal ships passing in the night ... in that they were still together in the caravan (for whatever reason!) at the point of the fire which was some weeks or months after the birth.
Could the birth have been registered in the name of the father? If so we are at a dead end until we find who he was!!!
Catherine was married with six children by 1911 and living in Meliden with her husband Herbert Jones.
William Morgan was born in Cwm in 1827. We have him in all censuses up to and including 1881 but after that the trail goes cold although we have not found his death with 100% certainty.
His wife Alice (nee Jones, then Roberts) was born in 1814 in Tremerchion. Again we have her until 1881 but no later.
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Interesting........ 1891 has William and Alice with a grand-daughter Gertrude Rowley, age 21 born Hulme, Manhester, Lancashire.
RG12/4627/39/4
Wonder if that's the Hulme conncetion? Not sure how though
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Also daughter Elizabeth age 40 on the 1891 with William & Alice
ADDED She is listed as a Morgan and Single.
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Hi, Arranroots.
We know from Catherine Morgan's marriage certificate (in 1896) that she was the "daughter" of William Morgan, a carrier. And also that she was around 26 years of age and lived in Rhyl. We know that when she moved back to Wales that she lived in Rhyl and that there is a connection with Wellington Road. From recollection, although going back a while in my memory, this was the only Catherine Morgan in the Rhyl area of a similar age with a "father" called William. To add strength to our conviction he was shown in 1871 as a coal carrier and in 1881 as a carrier. One of the witnesses to the marriage was a Thomas Morgan and while I accept that is not the least common name in north Wales there is a Thomas Morgan who is the natural son of William Morgan and Alice.
It also all ties in with the family folklore passed down by a great-aunt who, although known to embellish occasionally, was a close confidante of Catherine in her later life and who provided us with the bones of the data before we substantiated in by our own research work.
It's not 100% proof, I accept, but that is why we are now trying to find more out about Catherine's life to add the little bit of extra proof.
The 1881 census is RG11/5528 in Rhuddlan
The 1901 census is RG13/5234 in Meliden
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Still looking, but one thing has me wondering...........
If both parents died in the fire, how did the baby survive??
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Am I right in thinking that Catherine is still missing in 1891? I'm getting confused!
I like the newspaper idea - local libraries have access to the Gale newspaper collection, which would be worth a try.
In Ian's first post he asked about NHS records, but unfortunately they are often closed for 100 years after the death of the patient. Can't hurt to ask I suppose - if you know where and what name to ask about!
The other usual avenues are things like identifying visitors on the census, looking for naming patterns (any exotic middle names that might be of noble acquisition?) or maybe wills if you know some likely noble families to explore.
;)
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Hello,
I keep reading this hoping that something will jump out at me but ... ;D ::) ???
Glad you have asked about 1891 - I take it she is missing at the moment?
Also just to say when I was looking for clues re convent etc (other thread too) -the Catholic Church was Wellington Road - where the family was in 1881 - not sure if any relevance but what the heck!
heywood
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Can anyone else (see Gertrude Rowley see wifeywebb's earlier post) anywhere else b 1870 ish Hulme?
She is the right age.
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Other threads?? :o ::)
Ian, please ensure that you don't allow all these threads to duplicate - you can link them by cutting and pasting the URLs (Control+C +V)
It's best just to have one thread going at a time, cos duplication can lead to aggravation.
School records are a good thing to look for though, since Catherine's age should be recorded and you might find out who paid, if someone did. It wasn't essential to be Catholic to attend a convent, btw.
Heywood - I can see Gertrude but her age in 1871 is given as 11 (unless the one is written twice). She's the daughter of a local family but there's a woman from Flintshire in the same household. Sorry, didn't record the details.
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Have tried googling nobility in Hulme - not having much luck at the moment!!!
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here's the other thread - no names - just asking re convent schools
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,390909.msg2623259.html#msg2623259
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This is the one I was seeing:
RG10 Piece 3685 Folio 124 Page 24
Don't know what you think?
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This is the one I was seeing:
RG10 Piece 3685 Folio 124 Page 24
Don't know what you think?
She's with her mother Flora (born Manchester) in censuses 1861-1901 so it's not her.
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That Flora was nee Frankham - was hoping for a Roberts or Morgan!!
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I know I am looking for 'Welsh' Gertrudes now in Hulme in 1870 -found a nurse child Gertrude Jones but I think she turns up in a later census :(
But if they have given 'Catherine' an assumed name - surely they wouldn't give her a completely different 'assumed' name ???
I wonder if any of the daughters married a Mr Rowley?
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Ah, yes, WifeyWebb ... the Gertrude Rowley mystery.
No-one knows of her or has ever heard her name. We can find no trace of a suitable birth for a Gertrude Rowley which involves any of the children of either William or Alice (to make her a grand-daughter). We cannot find her in 1881 ... or in 1901 ... or having died or married between 1891 and 1901.
There IS a Gertrude Rowley but, as I think a recent posting has said, she is accounted for in 1891 so it can't be the same one.
And, more mysteriously, we can't find our Catherine at all on the 1891 census. We have even considered whether Gertrude and Catherine are one and the same person ... unlikely I know but we can't cross reference anything that connects them even though we think that they are both grand-daughters of Alice Morgan (nee Jones, later Roberts). Are they maybe twin sisters and at the point of separation one went with the mothers family and one with the fathers? Again conjecture with nothing to back it up but this mystery is altogether baffling.
We have three old, but pretty lucid, relatives all of whom knew Catherine personally ... but they seem to be sworn to some sort of secrecy between them about what they actually know about her very early days. Which, not surprisingly, makes us all the more keen to find out ... there is a mystery there ... needs a sort of genealogical Scooby Doo to get to the bottom of it!!!!
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Odds and ends, just for the record:
There was only one Catherine Morgan birth registered in your time frame (in Wigan) and she seems to have died within a few weeks. There are 2 Catherine Roberts, both registered in Liverpool and one seems to have died aged about 6 months. Wrong city though, according to your story.
I did try the Manchester Times for 1870-1880 for reports of deaths in fires, but found nothing relevant. Perhaps I should have included 1869 if you think Catherine was just a baby when she was orphaned.
Do you know where Catherine is buried, a date of birth may be on the gravestone?
I have to say I'm a bit sceptical about the "son of nobility" story and the idea a servant would have been allowed to keep her baby at her place of work and the "noble" father would have been allowed to continue to see her. Maybe William and Alice agreed to look after the baby, provided the real mother (one of the daughters?) kept away and Catherine (and the neighbours!) were told her parents had perished in a fire... :-\
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I agree that there are often invented stories to disguise what really happened.
I also think, at the moment, that there could well be a link between the Catherine and Gertrude - odd that the 'Manchester' birthplace is shared between the adult Catherine and Gertrude and the approximate year of birth :-\
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... and within the family in 1891- Gertrude is bilingual along with Elizabeth whilst William and Alice are both Welsh speakers. (so she hasn't just popped over for a visit).
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Odds and ends, just for the record:
There was only one Catherine Morgan birth registered in your time frame (in Wigan) and she seems to have died within a few weeks. There are 2 Catherine Roberts, both registered in Liverpool and one seems to have died aged about 6 months. Wrong city though, according to your story.
In contrast, the North Wales BMD has two birth registrations for a Catherine Roberts in St Asaph in 1869 but no Catherine Morgan(s) in that area, apart from the Letita Catherine that Heather found earlier.
http://www.northwalesbmd.org.uk/cgi/birthind.cgi
Gadget
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Thanks, AlpineCottage.
We are a bit skeptical about the "son of nobility" bit too but it seems about the only common thread between the three old relatives stories. Maybe, as you say, that is in itself the conspiracy.
That said, Catherine was born somewhere and to someone and while I can accept that she might not have been registered she very clearly had an education of some sort and the most reliable of our sources is the one that talks in most detail about Catherine herself talking about the "grand lady" in the "coach and four" that came to visit and supposedly paid her school fees and brought her gifts. Maybe if we can find the school records we can see if her education was "paid for" ... and, if it was not, maybe debunk the whole tissue of lies!!!!!
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Freebmd has:
Ann Catherine Roberts - Chorlton 8c 724 - Jun 1869 Qtr
Lancashire BMD states that the sub-district for this birth was Hulme.
There is also:
Catherine Ann Roberts - Manchester 8d-205 - Mar 1869 Qtr
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Hello kanskar,
1871 has 4 Catherine Roberts- all with two parents. :(
heywood
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About the BMD's - I just looked for births in Lancashire and just for babies called Catherine (without another first name) as there has been no suggestion Catanaccio's Catherine had another name.
Ah, yes, WifeyWebb ... the Gertrude Rowley mystery.
Someone may have suggested this, but I wonder if Gertrude could be a mistranscription of Catherine between the original household census sheet to the enumerator's sheet we can see today. ???
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Elizabeth disappears after 1861 - she is Elizabeth Roberts then and then returns in 1891 and 1901 as Elizabeth Morgan. I wonder where she is. I have tried searching for her born Dyserth - :(. There are several Elizabeth Roberts b Wales etc ::)
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Hi All :)
This is an interesting one!
Possible entry for Elizabeth as Thomas in 1881:
John Williams, 35, married, butler (dom), b. Mold, Flint, Wales
Elizabeth Thomas, 40, unmarried, cook (dom), b. Dyserth Flint Wales
Elizabeth Davies, 21, unmarried, housemaid, b. Llanfair, Denbigh, Wales
Address: Brymair, Llanfair-Dyffryn-Clwyd, Denbigh, Wales
This is from FamilySearch, refs: RG11 Piece / Folio 5523 / 59 Pg No. 6
Monica
:P :P Doh, just realised that names is Roberts. Thomas was the first name of Alice's first husband....!
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Hi Monica
See reply #5:
The suspected grandmother was called Alice Jones (b. 1814 Tremerchion, Flintshire). She was first married to Thomas Roberts and secondly married to William Morgan.
As a Roberts, I'd be very worried if I suddenly had become Gadget Thomas ;D
Gadget
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... or even 'Thingummyjig Thomas' ;D
At the moment I am going for Catherine Morgan aka Gertrude Rowley but I could be persuaded otherwise I suppose ;)
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Elizabeth disappears after 1861 - she is Elizabeth Roberts then and then returns in 1891 and 1901 as Elizabeth Morgan. I wonder where she is. I have tried searching for her born Dyserth - :(. There are several Elizabeth Roberts b Wales etc ::)
Hi Heywood
Have you searched in the Liverpool/Manchester corridor and parts of Cheshire. I think I saw an Elizabeth Roberts in Lancs on the 1871 as a servant - age and broad place of birth seemed to fit. Then we had a thunderstorm and I had to go offline and the thread had moved on.
Many females went from the North Wales counties to do 'service' in Lancs, etc. and their PofB on the census was not as exact as it was when they were living in their 'own' area.
I'll go see if I can find it again.
Gadget Roberts ;D
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we had no thunderstorm and I think I did but there was no child - there are quite a few as you may imagine with Wales as a birthplace.
I'll look too and then that's two of us ;D
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Here it is:
RG10/4014 F83 P 315 31
In Salford. She's down as being born Mold which is a way from Dyserth but :-\
No child but Catherine/Gerude might be elsewhere with another family who took such children in.
Gadget
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I can see one on Pg 31 but not 315 ???
As you say though Mold is a way from Dyserth :-\
Isn't it frustrating because in reality we don't know what name the child was going under in 1871 or registered ???
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ooops - yes it was page 31 - I'll go modify
Can't see any other likely ones in the broad area or in North Wales :-\
Any sign in the 1881?
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not that I can see - in Manchester area anyway.
Have looked for Gertrude/Catherine Rowley - nothing -so even if she isn't Catherine Morgan- she isn't Gertrude Rowley either by the looks of it :-\
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I have found the following references to Rowley in the North Wales newspaper: On 29 May 1869, Mrs Rowley presided over the wedding of her son, Capt Conwy Hercules Rowley to Miss Harford at her (Mrs R's) family home called Bodrhyddan in Dyserth. The family had been living abroad until 2 weeks before the wedding. On 29 June 1870, the Honourable Mrs R died near Naples, . She had been the wife of Col R T Rowley, married in 1835 and "had issue, according to the newspaper". Col. the Honourable Richard Rowley married in 1872 and there was a Miss Rowley, too. The Rowleys were a big Army, local businessmen, sitting-on-various-boards type of family.
Does this sound interesting - right area, name of local "nobility", sons the correct age for molesting servants....
I got this off Gale, 1869-1875, North Wales Chronicle
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Sounds very interesting, Alpine cottage!!
But how to prove the whole darn thing............
Urmm, that marriage doesn't appear on freebmd??
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The actual marriage was in London, St Geo Han Sq, 2nd Q 1869, Marian Harford to Conway Grenville H Rowley.
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Ooooo... sounds very interesting :o
Here is Conwy Rowley Conwy in 1881 (a magistrate)
RG11; Piece: 5527; Folio: 126; Page: 42
Now I,too ,am convent educated and am trying to use tact and good taste here- if the family were abroad until the wedding - would Conwy have been around at the appropriate time?
heywood
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The actual marriage was in London, St Geo Han Sq, 2nd Q 1869, Marian Harford to Conway Grenville H Rowley.
perhaps I have the wrong person then :(
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OK, I was looking for it in Wales??? That'll teach me!!!
So, back to Gertrude - has she been found in any census other that 1891?
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Gertrude only appears in 1891-- no birth (not the one born 1860ish), no record apart from 1891.
here is Conwy in 1871 RG10; Piece: 5667; Folio: 131; Page: 41
married but no wife.
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Sorry, Wifeywebb, I could have been clearer. The other ?brother, Richard also married in London.
I'm not accusing Conwy of the deed, Heywood. Far be it from me (also convent educated!) to cast aspersions, there were other Rowley offspring. The newspaper report was focussing on Mrs R and her role in arranging the wedding in double quick time (one wonders, why the hurry), so the whole family may not have been abroad, rather the Rowley "household" was.
This family were at the upper echelons of society, their names tended not to follow the same rules as the rest of us, eg Conwy is referred to as Conwy Rowley and Rowley Conwy in the various newspaper reports (of which there are loads). They attended society weddings etc, etc.
Perhaps looking at 1841,51 and 61 censuses will turn up all the Rowley children.
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A bit of info on the Rowley family here (under 'The Bodrhyddan Estate').
http://www.dyserth.com/html/land___landowners.html
Meriel
PS check out the link to the 'Morgan Sisters' at the top on same page - got all excited for a moment but not the same... ;D
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I'm not accusing Conwy of the deed, Heywood. Far be it from me (also convent educated!) to cast aspersions, there were other Rowley offspring. The newspaper report was focussing on Mrs R and her role in arranging the wedding in double quick time (one wonders, why the hurry), so the whole family may not have been abroad, rather the Rowley "household" was.
Well I was certainly thinking that a Rowley had something to do with the deed now this connection to the area had turned up.
However, Gertrude in 1891 is quite specific about her place of birth - Hulme, not Manchester or Lancashire but Hulme so it does beg the question why? I suppose, there could have been extended family there to whom the expectant mother was sent.
Also of course, Gertrude may be nothing to do with the quest for Catherine. ???
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Gertrude may not be anything to do with Catherine, but she did appear as Grandaughter to William and Alice Morgan in 1891!!
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Oh I agree - (I think she is Catherine but that just me and I wish we could prove/disprove my theory) ::)
Off again now for another search ;)
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Thanks for all of your contributions. Sorry I've not replied sooner but we have had a bereavement in the family.
We have done some more digging but have had no success to date ... although my gut feeling is with the "Catherine is actually Gertrude" argument but, as Heywood says, we just need to prove it.
If anyone is in the area I would really welcome someone at Hawarden record office checking the school records for Pantasaph Convent School (or any others in the area) if they are held there.
Thanks to all again.
Ian.