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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: chris_49 on Wednesday 15 May 24 19:38 BST (UK)
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I've long tried to find the father of my illegitimate grandmother Sarah Hancox 1881-1941. i hoped that an Ancestry DNA test would give some answers, but so far the only match has been to Samuel Manton 1860-1913 who married her mother Harriet Lynes Hancox 1863-1929 in 1885 when she was pregnant again.
Yet in every census she is described as Sarah Hancox, stepdaughter. When she married my grandfather she gave her father as H Hancox no occupation, which can only refer to her mother - the usual concealment of the shame of illegitimacy. My mother only found the truth after her own mother died.
At first I dismised this connection to other Mantons - it was from a tree where there was a 75-year-old father, and on a side branch a 16-year-old father, and a connection to the aristocracy (a comedown for an Ag Lab!) All the hallmarks of badly researched trees. And you can be related in other, unknown ways in mid-Warwickshire (the Hancoxes and Mantons were from Kenilworth).
But since then I've found a connection to Samuel's mother Hannah Gaydon, by a relative I know and trust, and a better Manton match where an intervening relative has been found. I contacted my ThruLines match and although she didn't know, the match is on her mother's side (fits) and almost all her other lines hail from the Northampton area.
So is Samuel my great-grandfather after all? Would he get a girl pregnant, not marry her, but then marry her after she got pregnant again? And then not acknowledge her? My mother married her Manton first cousin perhaps thinking it was safe since he was only a half-cousin - was she wrong? (He was killed at El Alamein shortly after the wedding).
One possibility is that one of George's four elder brothers was the father. Three of them were married at the time so in no position to marry Harriet. The intriguing one is George born 1850 who is in Alvechurch in 1881 described as married, but alone. I can find no marriage for him - the Wiltshire one is born Coventry, and the Stretton-on-Dunsmore one is younger and stays there. Meanwhile Harriet Hancox is "servant out of place" 9 months pregnant and staying with a neighbour in Kenilworth - perhaps a mooted marriage that never happened>
In any case George then disappears. He may have died in London in 1898 but he's not on the 1891 census. He might be the George who emigrated to Canada with a wife Sarah, but the only marriage I can find that fits is in Ampthill in late 1881 - the 1880 one in Highworth is the Coventry George marrying Zelpha Ponting.
Sorry (again) that this is long?What do you think. Chris
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Looks like there was another Hancox daughter baptised on 12 May 1881. Same day as Sarah's baptism.
Alice, daughter of Harriett Hancox of Kenilworth.
Next to both baptism entries is the notation Private. (Possibly baptised privately at the mother's home?)
Plus the notation "Rec'd 10 July" for Alice. And "Received June 12/81" for Sarah.
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There's a 1 Jan 1883 burial in Kenilworth for an Alice Hancox. Age 1 year and 7 months.
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Yet in every census she is described as Sarah Hancox, stepdaughter.
Every census? I'm only seeing her (as step-daughter) with the family in the 1891 census. Sarah appears to be somewhere else in 1901.
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So you first found a likely DNA match to Samuel Manton then? And this is the same man who married your great grandmother Harriet Hancox, after your grandmother was born?
Who is George, was he Samuel Manton's brother? Or do you mean Samuel himself? Was George his middle name?
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1881 census - Looks like Samuel Manton is with the Best family in Sambourn, Alcester, Warwickshire.
Chris - Do you have Sarah's 1881 birth cert? If not, you should get it (along with Alice's birth cert). There may be a clue on the birth certs. I'm wondering if Sarah and Alice were twins.
Also, you should get Alice's 1882 death cert. It may provide a clue, as well.
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I'm wondering if Sarah and Alice were twins.
Same reg no so I would say yes, they were twins.
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Thanks very much to everybody who helped, especially those who found Sarah's twin Alice - I had no idea. I had the baptism but, wouldn't you know it, it was the last one on the page, and I never thought to click on to find Alice. In those days (~20 years ago) I didn't know the sighnificance of private baptisms, nor that it was unusual (at least in my family) to baptise as early as 9 days. Either because twins had a poor survival rate then, or to hide the bastardy shame, or both.
Yes I have Sarah's birth certificate, and not just any old cert but the one my mother found in her own mother's effects after her death, including that marriage certificate, both of which proved she was not a Manton but an illegitimate Hancox, which was quite a shock to her.
Sorry, Sarah was a servant, a cook (her known profession) in Lillington in 1901, still a Hancox, just a short walk from her future husband George Skelcey in Cubbington - there's a romantic story about this which I'll leave for now.
Now onto the DNA match theories. If Sarah was not Samuel's daughter - and WHY would he not acknowledge her? - the only other people who could contribute both Manton and Gaydon genes to Sarah were his surviving elder brothers. John 1841 had no children of his own, so perhaps he was infertile (his wife Harriet had a daughter from before the marriage). Thomas 1844 was in Kenilworth in 1881 but fathered a daughter that very same year by his wife - seems a bit cheeky. Henry 1846 and Stephen 1852 are not found after 1861 though no deaths found - Henry seems not to be the younger one found in the Stratford area on censuses.
So my attention was focused on George Manton 1850 who at least was not ridiculously older than Harriet. He is at home until 1871 but in 1881 is a Cowman in Alvechurch, Worcs, married but alone. As an alibi this is even better than Samuel's in Sambourn but an errant father-to-be can travel a long way in 9 months.
But after that he disappears. Since I last posted I have found the Coventry George Manton married to Zelpha/Zephtha in Wiltshire, so I have no marriage for him anywhere nearby, and certaiunly none to a Sarah (per those Canadian immigrants before late 1881. Thank you for your facts - I'd like some opinions.
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Yes I have Sarah's birth certificate...
Are you willing to share the details on the birth cert? Addresses and informant are very helpful.
As Sarah is described as "step-daughter" on the 1891 census then it suggests she's not Samuel's daughter. Also, she didn't give a father's name on her marriage record. If Samuel was really her father why wouldn't she mention this when she married? It suggests she was not aware who her father was.
Personally, I'm not convinced that Samuel was the father of Sarah and twin Alice.
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Yes I have Sarah's birth certificate...
Are you willing to share the details on the birth cert? Addresses and informant are very helpful.
As Sarah is described as "step-daughter" on the 1891 census then it suggests she's not Samuel's daughter. Also, she didn't give a father's name on her marriage record. If Samuel was really her father why wouldn't she mention this when she married? It suggests she was not aware who her father was.
Personally, I'm not convinced that Samuel was the father of Sarah and twin Alice.
I'll try to dig out that cert. What I remember is that nothing on it was remarkable - father space blank. It was on Clinton Lane, aka Castle Hill, in Kenilworth. I agree that Samuel was an unlikely father, and she herself was unaware, but those Manton and Gaydon DNA matches are pretty specific.
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Personally, I'm not convinced that Samuel was the father of Sarah and twin Alice.
Me neither. He would either have married her sooner not 4 years later or disappeared soon after she got pregnant if he didn't want to be a willing father.
Couldn't there be links to other possible fathers out there somewhere :-\
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Personally, I'm not convinced that Samuel was the father of Sarah and twin Alice.
Me neither. He would either have married her sooner not 4 years later or disappeared soon after she got pregnant if he didn't want to be a willing father.
Couldn't there be links to other possible fathers out there somewhere :-\
I don't think so either, but perhaps he was more mature and willing to take responsibility at 25 than he was at 20. Against that, he didn't acknowledge her.
There could be some other father out there but 3 years of chasing DNA matches on Ancestry hasn't uncovered him - most matches turn to be from other branches on my mother's side, like Hancox. There then remains the problem of how I am descended from those Manton and Gaydon matches.
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Think about getting Alice's 1882 death cert. It might provide a clue as to where Harriett was at the time.
Who knows...maybe she was residing very near to the biological father.
As for presuming that Samuel could be the real father I think that will lead you down a rabbit hole. It just doesn't make any sense (e.g. listing his biological daughter as 'step-daughter' in 1891).
If one of Samuel's brothers is the real father of Sarah and Alice you might go round in (DNA) circles trying to ascertain who the culprit was.
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Interesting that Elizabeth Aitken (nee Tidmarsh?) is a marriage witness for Harriett and Samuel in 1885.
We know that Harriett was visiting the Aitken family in 1881. Perhaps they were good friends.
I do wonder who Harriett was in service to prior to the 1881 census event. The term "out of place" usually refers to domestics who aren't in current employment.
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Perhaps Samuel wasn’t entirely convinced that Sarah was his, but for the second pregnancy he knew that he was responsible, so married Harriet. A lot of maturing can happen between 20 and 25! If he thought Harriet had been seeing someone else during their earlier relationship, he might never have admitted he was the father, even if it was entirely possible (the twins were likely born a bit early, which might have skewed his thinking re when he and Harriet “got together”.
Is the amount of DNA that your matches share of any help in determining if a brother might be the bio dad? I know they can vary widely, but it might help (and if you have a sibling who could test…).
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I would also agree that I do not think Samuel was the father, or was not totally sure he was the father, and always had those doubts so just referred to her as "stepdaughter". But it is looking likely he was her uncle instead. Much of what is said about DNA testing goes over my head as I have little to no experience with genetic genealogy, just paper trails.
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My mother married her Manton first cousin perhaps thinking it was safe since he was only a half-cousin - was she wrong? (He was killed at El Alamein shortly after the wedding).
So is the Manton man your mother marries a descendant of Samuel and Harriet or a different branch of the Manton family?
The dna 'matching' to Hannah Gaydon might be from further back, eg if one of her ancestors has a sibling who marries into one of your other lines.
It's had to explain, but I've noticed my mom having shared matches where it looks like the paternal side match/share with the maternal side, I finally found the link when finding a female from the paternal side marrying into the other line, but quite a bit earlier than I might have expected.
Lisa
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Sorry if that's not clear. My mother's first husband was John Edward Weyman, son of Margaret Manton who was the half-sister of my grandmother Sarah Hancox. So yes descended from Henry Manton and Hannah Gaydon. I only wish that I was still in touch with my Manton relatives but sadly not, and none of them has taken an Ancestry DNA test (there aren't many of them).
I realise that this is all surmising but I have little else to go on. My Manton match has only Northants forebears apart from this line.
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Harriet was "domestic servant out of place" in 1881 because - I suspect - she was sacked for getting pregnant. She was staying - hiding? - with next-door neighbours. I've often wished that those employers had sacked her just a little later!
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Sorry if that's not clear. My mother's first husband was John Edward Weyman, son of Margaret Manton who was the half-sister of my grandmother Sarah Hancox. So yes descended from Henry Manton and Hannah Gaydon. I only wish that I was still in touch with my Manton relatives but sadly not, and none of them has taken an Ancestry DNA test (there aren't many of them).
I realise that this is all surmising but I have little else to go on. My Manton match has only Northants forebears apart from this line.
So is it correct that John Edward Weyman is not your father?
Sorry I just needed to be clear, because if he were (as a Manton/Hancox direct line descendant), I think it would be impossible to unravel via dna, as you wouldn't know if any Manton dna were from your mother (if Samuel were her father) or from John E Weyman.
A suggestion I had in mind, and which you answer, is to test other descendants of Samuel and Harriet, to see if it is clear from the cMs shared, if they are full or half 'cousins' to your line of Sarah, your mother, you.
It would still be difficult.
Is the Manton match you mention high in cMs?
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Harriet was "domestic servant out of place" in 1881 because - I suspect - she was sacked for getting pregnant. She was staying - hiding? - with next-door neighbours. I've often wished that those employers had sacked her just a little later!
and is there a 'son' in that household who might be the father?
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John Edward Weyman died at El Alamein in 1942. My mother married my father in 1948. As I said, I don't know any Mantons who I could ask to test. A first cousin has tested and although she is a Harriet descendant she has the same unknown father as me, and her matches don't give any significant information.
My Manton match is quite remote, I agree. ThruLines in its wisdom has tried to suggest we are related on her father's side in some way, but the only match she has with me is on her mother's side which includes the Mantons.
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I would be looking at the family Harriet is with in 1881, the sons with the family on the census are a bit young to be the father of Sarah, but do they have any older sons who could be the father and who might just be elsewhere on the census?
If so, then I'd do a tree for that family - I think if you put the name of a possible father in place (on an anc tree), then thrulines might come up with suggestions.
But if you create a tree for that family, then see what surnames you get, and search for that name amongst your matches and their trees.
(I've had a father living next door to his 'girlfriend' and illegitimate child, so it does/did happen).
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I'm not convinced by your Aitken theory. Mrs Aitken had been a Tidmarsh, and there is no son before William after her marriage, just a daughter. Tidmarsh is such a rare name that it was worth checking to see if she might have had a son before the marriage, but nobody nearby.
(I actually wonder if Harriet being enumerated with the Aitkens rather than the much less crowded Hancox house next door was a fiction to disguise the fact that they had a heavily pregnant unmarried teenage daughter living with them, from the enumerator.)
But mainly because domestic servants had such a restricted life - generally just one day off a week, and that only for the day. The master or young master of the house being the father is much more likely, I agree, and I know of an example nearby, but we have no way of finding out where that was - not necessarily locally.
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(I actually wonder if Harriet being enumerated with the Aitkens rather than the much less crowded Hancox house next door was a fiction to disguise the fact that they had a heavily pregnant unmarried teenage daughter living with them, from the enumerator.)
I assume that the enumerator wasn't checking everyone off against a list or even having to see everyone who was in a household, so how would the enumerator know that she was pregnant!!
They weren't collecting info on which females were or weren't pregnant. ;D
There could've been any number of reasons why she was next door, it may even have only been the night in question. She is listed as 'visitor' after all (not as boarder or lodger).
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Also, as I stated in Reply #11 Elizabeth Aitken (nee Tidmarsh) was one of the witnesses at the 1885 Hancox/Manton wedding. So 4 years after the 1881 census there was still a friendship (or family connection?) between Harriett and Elizabeth Aitken.
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Until I get another Manton or Gaydon match, I'm resting this line for now. My only contact who is a definite line from both has not taken a DNA test and last time I messaged her she didn't reply - to complicate matters she is also related to me on another line, though more remotely.
The Aitkens were long-time neighbours but I fail to see anyone who could be Sarah's father, and I have no matches. There are any number of reasons why Harriet could be "visitor" - she could be just visiting at the time of the enumeration, for the day. I worked the 1981 census and found people didn't understand the criteria even then.
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Thanks very much for all your contributions anyway
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I have a similar situation, so here's some food for thought...
My 3x great-grandmother was born Lizzie Wade Rimes on October 7th 1868, the illegitimate daughter of Elizabeth Rimes. Banns were read out for a marriage between Elizabeth Rimes and Isaac Wade on December 13th, but the marriage didn't actually take place until exactly a year later, at the Peterborough Register Office.
The use of the middle name 'Wade' and then a quick attempt to marry Isaac strongly suggests Elizabeth considered him to be the father. In both the 1871 and 1881 census, Lizzie is recorded under his surname along with the rest of her legitimate siblings.
But when she married my 3x great-grandfather John Robinson in 1888, she uses the surname Rimes, and her father's name is left blank on the marriage certificate.
In 1948 when they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, a newspaper article described her as being the daughter of Isaac Wade. This was decades after his death, however, and obviously not an official document.
I have photographs of Lizzie and Isaac and in my opinion there is a resemblance between them. Isaac's features can also be seen in her descendants.
My DNA match percentage with descendants of Lizzie's younger legitimate siblings are consistent with Lizzie being a full-blooded sibling, which to me suggests that Isaac was in fact her biological father.
So like you, I'm left wondering why Isaac never claimed her officially, in what seems to have been a case of cold feet, only to marry Elizabeth and have many more children (thirteen, not including Lizzie!)
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Thanks for your observations. At least you have DNA and photographic evidence - I have little of the former and none of the latter, even though I have photos of some of my other great-grandparents.
I'll keep waiting and hoping.