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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: myluck! on Sunday 15 August 10 09:38 BST (UK)

Title: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: myluck! on Sunday 15 August 10 09:38 BST (UK)

Following on from comments in "you know you are you addicted.." in particular Heitch's daughter who felt sad for people she didn't know and LizzieW's Dad's friend John.

This is my adopted boy:
When the Air India Flight 182 crashed off Cork in 1985 all the passengers died. 198 people were lost at sea and 131 bodies were recovered.  There is a memorial in Cork at Sheep's Head Peninsula for all those lost. There is just one person from the crash buried in Dublin. In Hindu tradition babies are not cremated and this one little 15-month old boy was buried in Glasnevin with an inscription Air India Child. I don't get to Glasnevin often but I still often think of this child - I found out his name - It is Ankur Seth. His parents and siblings also died in the crash. He is so far from both Canada and India, but he is not forgotten.

My grandfather always said that "if you pass a church go in and visit; so on the last day the Lord won't have to ask who is it!" Well I have extended that to remembering forgotten people I have found in graveyards.

Have you someone that is not related that you have found while family searching and keep in mind??

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: sallysmum on Sunday 15 August 10 09:56 BST (UK)

oh yes!  The man I thought might have been my 2x gt grandpops!  John died in the workhouse from dysentry (not a nice way to go - exhaustion).  His son died at 6 months (the boy I thought was my gt grandfather, thus disprooves a relationship) a few days after his mother died.  How sad for John, I don't know what happened in the years between these tragic events and his admittance into the workhouse, he must have had a very hard/sad life then to his ultimate demise.  Although not related, I still think of him with the hope that his memory didn't die with him

sallysmum

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Sunday 15 August 10 13:46 BST (UK)

Here's what I wrote on the other topic.

Reminds me of my late father.  He would always look in churchyards, (as I do and did even as a child)  and if he saw a child's grave (as you can imagine there were many, especially in the old village churchyards), he would bow his head and say a prayer.  We lived near such a graveyard and he found a grave of a child called John.  We had no idea who this child was, but every time dad came to visit, he would go to the churchyard to see John, to say hello and say a prayer for him.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: dafpilot on Sunday 15 August 10 15:10 BST (UK)

I know this is not quite the same as the previous post's, but when I was going through the family photo's I came across a picture postcard from my grandmother to my grandfather who was in the trenches in WW1, as she sat and posed for the camera with her two children, a lively, laughing, 2 year old and a babe in arms, you could see the look in her eyes, that this was maybe the last thing she would ever send to him, and that she would be alone to bring up two children on her own, the sadness in her eyes is haunting. thankfully though he did return, but that picture, every time moves me, and the note he wrote on the back, pleading that if he died on the field, that someone should return that picture to his children. well it stick's in the mind always..
        dafpilot

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: willow2670 on Sunday 15 August 10 16:55 BST (UK)

Recently I have found in burial records babies belonging to my ancestors -
born and died between censuses, so I never knew they existed.   :'(

I have know put them on the family tree with their parents -
where they belong.

Sue

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: myluck! on Sunday 15 August 10 17:13 BST (UK)

Willow I can relate to that too
I found a little boy between the 1901 and 1911 census
He was my son's great grand uncle and unwittingly they have the same name

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Finley 1 on Sunday 15 August 10 22:19 BST (UK)

I know the 1911 census shows that my gt.gt. grandparents had 8 children 5 of which survived... Nobody knew or mentions these poor sweet babies.. Now they hold a special place in my tree.. I have since found other either very early or still born babies unmentioned  .. So sad..

I have tried to find the records of the three babies but with very little to go on it is not easy..

xin

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Lal on Tuesday 17 August 10 00:24 BST (UK)

I always get a feeling that in some way, when I find a child who lived a very short life, I am 'recognising' them, recording that they had a life and brought their parents joy. I don't know if this is because I have a little boy myself and am being sentimental, but I do get a nice feeling that in some way, they are not forgotten once I have found them...

I often go off on a mad trail though, when I find someone interesting on my searches, I even looked up the whole tree going back of a woman who married my OH's great-greatgrandfather late in her life after all her children were grown, even though she has nothing to do with me - it was just so interesting to see how most of this family moved from the beautiful Yorkshire Dales to East Lancashire, and how those who stayed managed to eke a living.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: danuslave on Tuesday 17 August 10 00:30 BST (UK)

Lal

I think this sums up the difference between a Family Historian and a Genealogist   :D

Linda

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: MarieC on Tuesday 17 August 10 10:42 BST (UK)

In my most elusive family line, my g-g-uncle was a vicar in Wales (his sister came to Australia with her husband and was my direct ancestor).  He and his wife had seemed to be childless, until a kind Rootschatter visited the church where he had been the Vicar and found and photographed a baby's grave.  The little mite only lived a couple of months.  I was so sad, and I have often wondered - were they unable to have more children, or did they decide not to?  It must have been such a grief for that couple.  I often think of them and of little Christopher.

MarieC

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: sarahsean on Tuesday 17 August 10 12:22 BST (UK)

My grt, grt, great grandfather and mother had two children who died.

Charles born in 1826 died sometime before 1829 and Henry b1828 died 1829.  They then had two other boys and named them Charles b 1829 and Henry b1830 after the children who died.  This really struck me as i would be unable to name my children after children who had died. 


What do other people think?

Sarah

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Tuesday 17 August 10 12:33 BST (UK)

Lal

I do that too, sometimes even to the extent of buying certificates - mad or what 8). 

Interestingly, there was a topic on Roots recently from someone tracing their family.  I thought, that name sounds familiar.  Sure enough it was the name of the first husband of my 2 x g.uncle's 2nd wife.  ::) At least I now know a little more about this man, but why would I need to know - as Linda says, more Family historian than genealogist.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: aniph on Tuesday 17 August 10 12:39 BST (UK)

My great grand parents married in Australia then went to NZ. I looked for their marriage in Australia then any births. In total they had 9 children and 3 were left in graves in Melbourne :'( Only 3 lived to adulthood. They are all proudly named on my tree and how I feel for their parents.

Annie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: groom on Tuesday 17 August 10 12:47 BST (UK)

I was upset to find that my great grandmother's sister had 10 children and only 2, Philip and George lived to adulthood, most died the same year they were born. Philip married and had 3 children, two of whom died young. Philip himself died aged 44 and as far as I can see the family petered out as his only daughter didn't marry, neither did his brother George. I feel that by tracing them and putting them on my tree they are not forgotten. 

Jan

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LoneyBones on Tuesday 17 August 10 12:58 BST (UK)

I found a Gertie who had written a letter to the Australian Military asking for information about my great uncle. The letter was amongst his military papers. I didn't know who she was at the time and assumed she must have been engaged to him. Since he was killed in action at the Somme I always felt so sorry for her.
I later learned she was my great aunt, his sister Elizabeth, known in the family as Gertie.
But it made me realise that there must have been many a fiancee who was never informed of her man's death unless she was close to his family. On Anzac day I always think of the Gerties who were never told.

Leonie.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Maggie1895 on Tuesday 17 August 10 12:59 BST (UK)

Quote from: groom on Tuesday 17 August 10 12:47 BST (UK)

I feel that by tracing them and putting them on my tree they are not forgotten.
Jan

Jan, I do the same.   I've been surprise to find how upsetting the discovery of infant deaths in the family is, even a century or more later.   The first I found was my gr.gr uncle, several years ago, and the most recent I found last week explained my gr.gr.grandmother's early death: she died following childbirth and her son died at the age of 9 months.   I  record all of them on my tree  for the same reason as you and several others do, and as I put together the family history for my children and grandchildren they will all have their place.   Linda said that marks the difference between family historians and genealogists, and I think that's spot on.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: myluck! on Tuesday 17 August 10 13:18 BST (UK)

I am glad I started this topic as it is nice to see confirmed how much we all care about all those past.
I have found many people that were not previously known to exist especially children. It seems they were just whisked away and buried and families expected to get on with life in many cases.
And I also have my "adopted" family of people picked up along the way!

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Tuesday 17 August 10 14:13 BST (UK)

My gran had 3 children who died, one aged 24 in 1920 from TB, one aged 15 months in 1907 from tuberculosis meningitis and one aged 2 weeks in 1910 from congenital debility and convulsions.  Not sure what that would be classed as today.  My mum said she had told her that she felt the loss of them all in different ways.  Some unfeeling person had told her, when the 2 week old son died that as she'd already got 7 children it didn't matter that this one had died. ::)  My mum said she could remember how upset her mum (my gran) was when telling her the story many years later.  The baby who died was born 18 months before mum.  They are all on my tree, but I only have a photographs of my aunt who died aged 24.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: MarieC on Wednesday 18 August 10 10:45 BST (UK)

I agree that finding the deaths of babies and young children is inexpressibly sad, and that we should remember them in our trees.

A recent WDYTYA that I saw shed some light on one reason why a number of children in a family may have died young.  Apparently syphilis was extremely common, practically endemic, in the population in past centuries before antibiotics, and could be inherited.  The unfortunate person could be born with a disability such as blindness or with no major symptoms, but it would mean that many of their children would fail to thrive and die.  The effect apparently wore off eventually, so later children may have survived.  A cruel thing to happen!  I didn't know all this, and found it quite interesting.

MarieC

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Wednesday 18 August 10 11:39 BST (UK)

I don't think syphilis was the problem with my gran's children.  Only one, the little boy who died aged 2 weeks appeared to have congenital abnormalities.   One died as an adult from TB and the other aged 18 months from TB meningitis.  All the others lived until their 80s and 90s, with the exception of one who died in her 50s from an aneurysm.

Interestingly, my g.g.uncle who died in an asylum from a syphilitic related illness had loads of children, with 3 different wives, and none of them appear to have been affected.  All grew up and lived to an old age.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LoneyBones on Wednesday 18 August 10 12:06 BST (UK)

This one is from the June 2010 Family Tree magazine;
John William Waite died in 1845, at age 14 months. Cause of death on certificate;
"Natural debility and decay resulting from the want of breast milk."
It seems some families simply couldn't afford to feed themselves or their children. If a mother wasn't fairly well fed, she certainly couldn't breast feed her child.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Viktoria on Wednesday 18 August 10 22:01 BST (UK)

My special little one is a baby girl who died about four hours after she was born.
Her mother had hidden the pregnancy and the circumstances were very difficult in those days (1914) for a woman who had not lived with her legal husband for more time than nine months!
The tiny baby had no name , just " female", cause of death not known.
I feel for her and her mother and although not closely related -- mother was my grandmother`s cousin in a very small close- knit community -I think about them and will visit the ruins of the house on my next visit in the near future .                                                                                                     Mother and baby buried together in the one coffin.No marked grave, indeed their burial place is not certain .No one remembers now and I did not know the full story when there were people still alive to ask. As usual I am (and have been  for years )kicking myself. Viktoria.
As a point of interest when a death  is registered and it gives no name for a neo natal death would that always mean no name had been chosen or just that the baby had not been baptised ?

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Wednesday 18 August 10 22:07 BST (UK)

Quote

As a point of interest when a death  is registered and it gives no name for a neo natal death would that always mean no name had been chosen or just that the baby had not been baptised

I suppose it depends how long after the birth it was registered, but a baby didn't have to be baptised before its birth was registered.  In any case what a sad story.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: tkgafs on Wednesday 18 August 10 22:18 BST (UK)

For me it was the horror of reading my great grandmothers headstone which I had seen before several times, before becoming hooked on family history, and realising that 5 of her 17 children died in the month of June 1875.

It was probably something which would be easily cured with antibiotics now, but here it wiped out a third of the family.

Was childhood death so common that they just got on with life, are we we too soft now etc etc, but it certainly explained why 3 of thie children had been called william

Tkgafs

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Wednesday 18 August 10 22:52 BST (UK)

Quote

are we we too soft now

No, as you will see from an earlier reply, my gran was very upset when her children died in the early 1900s.  What I think is that people were more used to babies dying in the past so were more philosophical about it, whereas now if a baby dies everyone is shocked.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Katharine F on Wednesday 18 August 10 23:34 BST (UK)

What a fascinating thread. 
 I discovered that my grandmother had previously been married but her 1st husband was killed in WW1.  So I researched him although he is not really a relative but I felt it was right to include him in our family history.

My other people are a family all living presumably happily in 1861 but in 1871 I couldn't find all the children, after a search I found 2 small boys in the workhouse and 1 girl in a school for orphan girls.
The other children were still with their mother. The father had died in 1866.  I often wonder how she chose who was to go and who was to stay at home. I felt so sorry for them all when I made this discovery.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Maggie1895 on Thursday 19 August 10 14:51 BST (UK)

Welcome to Rootschat Katharine.
I agree with you that this has been a fascinating thread.   What I like so much about this board is the recognition that every record or story or fact is a person, not a statistic.   I hope you enjoy being part of the board.
As to your family having to make that awful choice amongst their children ; well, let's hope that places were offered for some of the children based on their ages rather than her having to actually make the choice herself.   It still must have been incredibly difficult for her though, we have it very easy.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Viktoria on Thursday 19 August 10 19:41 BST (UK)

I remember reading a book many ,many years ago-
 one Mum would have been shocked about, it being the story of a well to-do unmarried mother and how she came "down in the world" It was Victorian times and there was some help but very little.Because she was well spoken it was assumed she was a widow and  so she described herself as such when applying to the charitable society for aid. Some remark was passed which made the assumption that well to do mothers felt grief more strongly than poorer women at the death of a child !!!! In other words if you were on your uppers and literally destitute you were not too bothered when your baby died but if  in comfortable circumstances you really suffered .When you think how little contact some posh women had with their children it beggars belief whichever way you look at it.
Life is not fair is it ?It never was but some things are less fair than others, you know what I mean. Viktoria.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: nort on Friday 20 August 10 18:05 BST (UK)

Sometimes when trawling through parish records i come across an unusual entry in the burials,the last one i remember was 'Man found dead on the road-age about 50 yrs'.Made me wonder who was he,where was he from,where was he going,was he a tramp? Sometimes its a body found in the river,was it a suicide from upriver or a sailor lost overboard.Makes you think doesn't it.

Steve

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Windsor87 on Friday 20 August 10 18:25 BST (UK)

I am a postgraduate history student, so I'm always looking into people of the past, but rarely the individual common man.

I did have one chance earlier this year to use my family tree interest (with the help of this website) to try and track down Scottish emigrants to Montreal in 1846.
The case which I sought help for on this website was the Robertson family of Monymusk who set sail for a better life in Montreal. Alexander Robertson and his wife set sail for Montreal with their family in 1846, and the voyage was recorded in the diary of their son, Charles. His mother died during the voyage, and the account says his father died not along after arriving in Montreal.

So I wanted to know what happened to Charles and his siblings. We did find them on the other side, but sadly Charles' fate remains unknown - but he survived for a time anyway.
More interesting was that Charles' sister returned to Scotland, and erected a stone in memory of her parents.

Incidently I was made aware of the Robertson family due to the the tutor's own book. She had no idea what happened to the family after arriving in Montreal (except for the father), so she was surprised when I was able to take the story as far as I did, and she was thrilled that there was a memorial to the couple in Scotland too.

I did give Rootschat the credit...just in case anyone else tries to accuse me of cheating. :P

Windsor87

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: rutht22000 on Friday 20 August 10 22:06 BST (UK)

I've got several in my tree that just seem to stand out from the rest - my great aunt Alice was one.  She died on Valentine's Day 1941. She was profoundly deaf from birth but managed to play county level hockey when she was in her 20s and she always struck a chord with me.  Then I saw a photograph of her of when she was 13 and she was my absolute double to the point of being quite eerie.

On the other side of that family there were 6 members of the family wiped out in 1940 when their house was a direct hit - from 60 year old grandma, her children aged 29, 20, 18, and 16 and her 3 year old grand-daughter.  The little one's father died about a week later in Hospital from his injuries (infection from metal railings that were embedded in his feet when he was thrown from the site of the blast).

You can't help but wonder how the siblings that survived coped with losing 6 members of their family in one night and for him to die that way knowing his wife and child had just died too.  My cousin is the absolute image as well of the 16 year old that lost her life that night.   That particular story has always struck with me - literally half a family gone in a few minutes.....

In the space of 8 weeks in 1903 my great grandmother also lost her daughter, a 17 year grand-daughter and her own husband as well has seeing the birth of 2 other grand-daughters as well. 

I always try to recognise them as each and every life is part of our trees no matter how short it was.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: kateblogs on Wednesday 25 August 10 11:04 BST (UK)

Lal - I do that too, it would be so sad if they just disappeared from history. I do feel for their parents though; to lose one baby would be horrendous, when I see couples who lost numerous children I do wonder how they managed to keep going.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: maggbill on Wednesday 25 August 10 11:41 BST (UK)

Fascinating reading all your stories - I was beginning to wonder if I was becoming a bit obsessed with this family history stuff - now I know it is a common affliction - to begin to feel that you actually in a way get to know these long gone individuals!!!!  ::)

What also struck a chord was it made me think of a website I saw the other day - if i remember correctly, it was one of the BBC links... about the 200 or so "John Doe" bodies found in England over the past 10 years or so - many of them being unidentified men dying horrendously run over by trains.  There were sort of "identikit" type drawings, - and it just really hit so hard, that no matter what a life they had - they once were loved and cherished by a family!!!   oh dear... better get back to the positive aspect of how we make sure many are not forgotten!!! 

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Deb D on Friday 27 August 10 08:15 BST (UK)

This has nothing to do with infant deaths, ... but I did have someone I wondered about!

While I was searching for the ship which brought my gt-grandfather to Australia, it suddenly dawned on me that  :o  gt-grandad could quite easily have come under suspicion of those investigating the Jack The Ripper case!

Gt-grandad was the son of a surgeon who practised in Poplar.  He had dropped out of Cambridge, and at some stage he completed enough studies at some sort of medical school, to become a pharmacist or chemist.
And I couldn't find him on shipping lists, so it appeared he'd been footloose and fancy-free around the same time as Jack The Ripper was terrorising London!

'T'was quite disturbing ... until at last I found him on a ship arriving in Melbourne, well before The Ripper's last victims met their Maker!

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: MarieC on Friday 27 August 10 11:27 BST (UK)

That must have been quite startling for awhile, Deb!  :o :o

Glad you found an alibi with him safe in this country while the Ripper was still doing his dastardly deeds!

MarieC

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Kevinshouse on Friday 27 August 10 12:39 BST (UK)

I found this gravestone in the tiny church where my daughter married last Christmas -
Allan and Mary Morrow parents of -
Joseph Scafton Morrow died 1856 aged 2
Jane Morrow died 1859 aged 5
Joseph Morrow died 1859 aged 1
Jane Morrow died 1865 aged 6 months
Robert Morrow died 1868 aged 3 months
Joseph Morrow died 1868 aged 11 months
Allan Morrow died 1869 aged 9 years
Mary Hannah Morrow died 1870 aged 10 months
Jane Isabella died 1875 aged 9 months
Mary Jane died 1877 aged 4 months
Hannah died 1880 aged 8 years
William died 1882 aged 20 years killed by a fall of stone at Seaham Colliery.

These parents never saw one of their children marry

Regards Susan

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: myluck! on Friday 27 August 10 13:32 BST (UK)

Isn't such a loss sad
Amazing that the gravestone was erected

I now wonder is it possible that another child lived???

Oh the wonder of wonder!

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Finley 1 on Friday 27 August 10 13:36 BST (UK)

1871 census shows them with just two children  (hopefully the same family)
William aged 8
and Mary Hannah  7 months??

xin

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Finley 1 on Friday 27 August 10 13:39 BST (UK)

and just an 18 year old William in 1891

so it doesnt look like it...

1901 Allen is  aged 63 a widower boarding with the Bell family  and a picture framer.

xin

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Kevinshouse on Friday 27 August 10 13:58 BST (UK)

I am sure that all their children died. I too looked on various census to find out a little more about them. The gravestone is quite worn, but inside the church is a photograph that someone took a few years back before it got too bad. We often visit the church (my daughter lives nearby) and I look at the grave, those poor parents.
Kind regards Susan

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Finley 1 on Friday 27 August 10 14:13 BST (UK)

Yes such a sad story    bless them all

xin

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: rutht22000 on Saturday 28 August 10 14:16 BST (UK)

that's so sad.

I went down a line of enquiry of a possible link to my great great great grandfather only to find that my person that didn't turn out to be my ancestor and all of his 10 siblings died all before they turned 18.    Not one child of these poor parents lived. 

Title: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: elinga on Saturday 28 August 10 20:48 BST (UK)

while trying to find the grave of my older brother who died aged 4 months in 1948, I discovered he was buried in a grave with 5 other infants who all died very young!
one surname was the same as mine but the other 4 were familiar!
I decided to investigate and discovered that one of the children was my dads sister whom I never knew had existed let alone died when so young and the other 3 were my dads cousins, who also died very young!
I still didnt know where they were buried as it was an unmarked grave, but  I eventually found them with the help of a cemetary superintendant.
my younger brother and I went to visit the grave and we were both very saddened that all these children had died and they were forgotten.
I think about them all the time and although I now  live abroad I will take flowers the next time I go!
Elinga

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Viktoria on Sunday 29 August 10 22:23 BST (UK)

It is always sad when graves are forgotten and so nice when someone does remember.

Good for you, it is just what I would do and I don`t mind admitting it makes me feel a whole lot better when I do it.                                                                                                                               
I find it hard to think that my Mum, busy as she was never to my knowledge visited her parents` grave or those of her sisters, and there were three of whom two ( a 16 year old and a 3month old)died when Mum was 14 and another died when Mum was 34.
I used to visit and tend them and felt so sad that all the children of the big supposedly happy family
never did.Perhaps they preferred to keep the memories of when they were alive.
Thanks to another RootsChatter I have found the  four missing graves of Mum`s siblings( 2 babies died well before Mum was born). I don`t think they can have been visited for many many years, at least 80 and probably a lot longer.Viktoria.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: Kevinshouse on Monday 30 August 10 13:36 BST (UK)

My sister found this on the 1881 census - William Armitage  is the brother of Ann who married into our family. My sister decided to follow the siblings of Ann just out of interest. She found Ann's brother William as follows -
Normanton Wakefield Yorkshire
William Armitage 44 - Widow Coalminer
Maskell Armitage 16 Son
Albert Armitage 14 Son
Selina Armitage 14 Dau
Tom Armitage 9 Son
Annie Armitage 7 Dau
Ada Armitage 4
William 10 days
The poor man was widowed and his youngest child was only 10 days old. His wife Hannah died in the 1st quarter of 1881 aged 39 years. The baby died a few months later.

Regards Susan

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Tuesday 31 August 10 17:19 BST (UK)

My g.gran's brother, James, married my g.grandad's sister, Agnes, so they were all brother and sister-in laws! 

I was researching James and Agnes who were my g.uncle and aunt and found that they married in April 1877, when he was 20 and she was 17.  They had 2 children a son in December 1877 and a daughter in January 1881.  By August 1881, James had lost all his family.  His baby daughter died in March 1881 aged 2 months from bronchitis of 6 days,  his wife died in June 1881 aged 21 from something called Softening of the brain (2 months duration), and in August his 3 1/2 year old son died of Peritonitis. 

In 1884, James re-married only to succumb to TB two years later aged only 29.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: pennine on Thursday 02 September 10 01:38 BST (UK)

Hello there, I found all these stories really sad and feel for the relatives who are upset by the revelations of their research.

I too feel sad about one of my great uncles. My Grandmother gave birth to triplets at home in the 1920's. The first child was born with the umbilical cord around his neck. The inexperienced midwife removed the cord, pronounced the child dead and moved on to the next child about to be born. The two remaining children, identical twins survived but the first child who was also identical to them sadly did die because he had not been helped at birth. My Grandmother was a very experienced nurse and she repeatedly told the midwife to see to the first child, clear his airways etc. The midwife refused convinced the child was still born. Later postmortem revealed that the first child though full term and a good weight and extremely healthy, had mucos in his throat preventing him breathing. If the midwife had done what grandma had said, that child would have survived with his brothers.
In those days it was just accepted as an accident of birth. These days the mother would have sued the backside off the midwife.
Even back then grandma held the child and had him christened before burial. I have often thought about how he would have been if he had lived and how as an identical triplet life would've been for him and his brothers.

Pennine

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: weeknightingale on Monday 27 September 10 07:58 BST (UK)

All such touching stories. Thank you for sharing them.

My mystery child is Williamina Robin.
 She was 4 months old as noted on the 1901 Glasgow, SCT census.
What happened to her?
She was one of the children of my grandfather's first wife. His first wife died in 1913 just two months before the first child died.  So should I assume that Williamina died in infancy too?
The other child on the census I was able to get her death record. Three other researcher that I know of also have searched for her in vain. Sweet Williamina I think of her and wonder did she die was her birth and death not registered. What happened to her? Is she buried in some lone cemetery or did she go on and live a happy life unknown to us?

Sweet Williamina Robin you are thought of even though I never knew you~

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Monday 27 September 10 11:31 BST (UK)

Is the 1911 census available in Scotland yet?  It might be that she is on it under a different name.  Maybe her father couldn't cope after his first wife died so she was sent to relatives, (?in England maybe) or put into a children's home which often happened.

Lizzie

ps.  If you give us Williamina's surname, you never know what Rootschatters may turn up.

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: weeknightingale on Monday 27 September 10 18:30 BST (UK)

Quote from: LizzieW on Monday 27 September 10 11:31 BST (UK)

Is the 1911 census available in Scotland yet?  It might be that she is on it under a different name.  Maybe her father couldn't cope after his first wife died so she was sent to relatives, (?in England maybe) or put into a children's home which often happened.

Lizzie

ps.  If you give us Williamina's surname, you never know what Rootschatters may turn up.

1901 SCT census

Her surname was ROBIN.

Father:     William Robin (1874-1963)
Mother:     Hellen 'Nellie' Burns died 1913 
 Helen J. N. Robin (1898-1913)
Williamina Robin  4 months?
res: 45 Edington Court, St George in the Fields, Cowcaddens, Glasgow

What happened to Williamina Robin?

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: LizzieW on Monday 27 September 10 19:42 BST (UK)

It could be a red herring, but as she had such an unusual name, I did a search on FreeBMD (which doesn't cover Scotland of course) and came up with:

Dec 1917 Plymouth 5b 604 a marriage between a Williamina Robin to a Ralph Leddra.

Dec 1920 Plymouth 5b 366, the birth of a child Yvonne H G Leddra, mother's maiden name Robin.

I can't find anything after that, so maybe she moved back to Scotland.

Lizzie

Title: Re: Have you ever found someone and wondered about them??
Post by: weeknightingale on Monday 27 September 10 20:05 BST (UK)

Quote from: LizzieW on Monday 27 September 10 19:42 BST (UK)

It could be a red herring, but as she had such an unusual name, I did a search on FreeBMD (which doesn't cover Scotland of course) and came up with:

Dec 1917 Plymouth 5b 604 a marriage between a Williamina Robin to a Ralph Leddra.

Dec 1920 Plymouth 5b 366, the birth of a child Yvonne H G Leddra, mother's maiden name Robin.

I can't find anything after that, so maybe she moved back to Scotland.

Lizzie

Thank you Lizzie. I did find that but the parents do not match up. I really feel that sweet little Williamina may have died since both her mother and sister died in the same year only a few months apart. I have both death records but none for Williamina.

I have often thought about my little mystery child, sweet Williamina Robin.