RootsChat.Com

Hi Mark

Thanks for writing! It seems there are quite a few people descended from the murdered John Pain.

Did you notice on the previous page that the burial record showed that John was 56 at the time of death? So he can't be the one who was baptised in 1754. That's probably someone else with the same name (maybe a cousin or even older brother who died). But everything else is correct including the marriage to Ann Proctor. There were three other children after William 1792, including another Elizabeth whose descendant also wrote in this thread.

Two hours for 35 miles on the M4. Surely you can do better by train!

Actually, given that I live 4 miles away from the nearest train station, and that Kew is nowhere near the lines from London to Reading, it would have probably taken longer than that.  The journey normally takes about 50 minutes by car, but as I said, there were big problems on the M4 that Friday afternoon.

But we digress.. 

Hi Ruskie,

Afraid not - I took a day's holiday to go to Kew as a one-off. I live about 35 miles away, it actually took me 2 hours to get back on the afternoon I went due to problems on the M4! 

I would have preferred to email the census images to myself (as I have done with the 1841-1901 censuses when viewing them at the local library), but the computers are very locked down at TNA, there's no access to a hard drive or USB devices, so no ability to save an attachment, also all email sites are blocked, so they've done a good job there. Plus the T&Cs clearly state that you mustn't use the system for any of those purposes. I am a fairly techy person who works in IT, and there was definitely no way around their security, even if I had dared to use it...

I went purely to view the scans, having already found the records I wanted through the 1911 site without spending a penny. I had already established most of what I wanted to know; I was mostly interested in seeing other, more minor bit of information, such as occupations, children born/died/total/years of marriage, etc.

Darren

Hi Derek,

I can't help you with your question, but I suspect we might have some sort of a connection.

My Great-Great Grandfather, James Smith, had parents Thomas Smith and Helen Parry. They married in early 1837 in Holyhead, unfortunately just missing civil registration, although the marriage is in the IGI.

It is suspected that Parry is not Helen's maiden name (she was born in approx 1803 in Beaumaris). She had a daughter, Matilda Helen Parry, born in approximately 1827. Matilda is shown on the 1851 census incorrectly as Matilda Smith. She went on to marry Jacob Mealing Mills in 1854 in West Derby, Liverpool.

Either Helen had been married before to a Mr Parry, or Matilda was illegitimate. These were actually fairly well-to-do types, that tended to have less illegitimacy.

Now, what leads me to suspect that we have a match is that according to the 1891 census, Matilda was born in Llandsaint, Angelsey. I suspect that this is an alternate spelling of Llanddeusant. (Incidentally, in 1861 her birth place is given as Llanheddi - I can't find anywhere named this and this may be a handwriting issue).

From what I can tell, Llanddeusant looks like a fairly small place, so if there are Parrys in that area, maybe they're related? Maybe your William Parry is Helen Parry's brother? Alternatively, maybe Helen's mysterious first husband is your William Parry's brother? Do you have any thoughts?

Thanks
Darren

I wonder how many of these occupations are actually written in the census, and how many of them are added by bored transcribers on a Friday afternoon? Just a thought... 

Great work, everyone... can't believe how this thread has ballooned since I contributed on about page 3!