WILLIAM GREAVES 1852 NEWICK

[Valda]

Even if there was a birth certificate, I doubt other than a date of birth, it would give you anymore information than you already hold from the 1851 census entry.
What you might find is a baptism entry. I would first check Newick parish registers for that possibility searching in either surname.

Regards

Valda

[MalGordon]

Hi Valda,

I have tried IGI, Batch Numbers, Sussex Weald, Sussex Family History Society, all to no avail. I have tried to find a member searching for this family on Genes Reunited, again with no success. Can you suggest any other sites that I may be able to search? The Budgen connection is tenuous at the very least and contains a lot of supposition.

Cheers,

Malcolm.

[Valda]

I wouldn't say the 1861 census entry is tenuous or contains supposition

RG9 585 folio 125
Snells Newick Sussex
Sarah Budgen Head Widow 64   Charwoman Fletching  Sussex       
William Greaves Grandson   8   Scholar  Brighton  Sussex   

If the information is correct then this William Greaves (of the right age and birthplace for your William Greaves) is Sarah Budgen's grandson.

Newick parish registers are not covered by the IGI or the BVRI.
I can't see that the Sussex Weald website holds any Newick parish registers either.

I'm not sure what the coverage of the Sussex FHS baptism index is for Newick. It seems to indicate it has entries in the 1850s

http://www.sfhg.org.uk/baptismsN.html

Since you have checked with the Sussex FHS does this mean they have full coverage of Newick baptisms for the 1850s but neither a William Greaves or a William Budgen baptism is there? Because if they do have full coverage and he is not there then obviously it is not useful persuing Newick further and perhaps Brighton parishes need to be looked at next.

Have you got from the Sussex FHS the baptism entries for all of Sarah Budgen's children both as Harland and Budgen in Newick?

If you have, then you have proved that Christiana Budgen is Sarah's daughter?

The 1851 census then gives you

1851 census HO107 1646 folio 132
75 West Street Brighton Sussex
Thomas Bryer 46 Head Married Cabinet maker Somerset
Mary Bryer 50 Wife Married Croydon Surrey
Christina Budgen 19  House servant Newick Sussex
William Greaves 18 (S?:L) Porter London Middlesex

Greaves is an exceedingly rare surname in Sussex. There were 10 Greaves in the whole of Sussex in 1851, nearly all of them in New Shoreham.

Then you have the likely death in Newick of Sarah's daughter Christiana using the surname Greaves. If the death is in Newick and of a woman of the correct age and even better the death is registered by Sarah (though deaths this earlier are often registered by any local woman who was experienced in nursing her neighbours) then you surely have a very strong connection.

Deaths Dec 1853   
Greves  Christiana     Lewes  2b 81

On the 1851 census there were 104 girls in Sussex with a first name of Christian* ages ranging of course, from 80 to 1.

Supposition's dictionary definition is 'assumption, belief without proof, conjecture'.

On Rootschat I endlessly bang on about family history research should bann the words assumption, presumption and supposition, but in this case you have several pieces of evidence, two census entries (three if you include the 1841 census entry in Newick where Christian Budgen is present in Sarah's household) Christiana Budgen's baptism in Newick? and potentially her death registration as Christiana Greves (sic) in Newick. Placed against the rareness of the Greaves surname in Sussex and the relatively rareness of the name Christiana (Budgen is a little more common at least 75 in 1851 but still a relatively unusual surname) and you place the evidence you have so far in a context. That to me doesn't seem like it is fulfilling the dictionary definition of supposition or that the evidence is tenuous. It isn't as conclusive as you would like with a birth certificate (and the information on them is not always correct), but then there is no evidence that the birth was registered.

If you want to check with the two local registration offices in case the entry has not made it into the GRO index they are Brighton

http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1113986

or Lewes for Newick

The Register Office, Southover Grange, Southover Road, Lewes, BN7 1TP.
Tel: 01273 475589. Fax: 01273 488073.
E-mail: lewes.registrar@eastsussex.gov.uk


If there is no birth certificate then the only final evidence of birth can come from a baptism, but neither would/will give you further information on William's father. The information on him from the 1851 census, is more then you would be likely to get from either of those two sources.

Lack of birth registration was not punishable by a fine until 1875. The most likely births to not be registered would be those that were illegitimate births which took place in towns and cities and where the mother may have moved shortly afterwards, the birth not being picked up by either registrar in two adjacent districts, since the onus was on them to try to track down births to oversee their registration.

It will be interesting to see what Christiana died of, because if she is Sarah's daughter (and there is no evidence of her on later censuses) then she died very young.


Regards

Valda

[sillgen]

A very succinct précis Valda.      The familyhistoryonline.net site has the baptism for Christian Budgen 30/07/1837 dau of James and Sarah, labourer   Newick St Mary    age 5 years.  Could not find a William - either Budgen or Greaves though.
Andrea

[MalGordon]

Thanks Valda,

I think it best to wait now until I have the copy of death certificate for Christiana.  Should be here in a week or so.

However another one from left field. There was a birth in East Grinstead in December quarter 1852 of a William with no surname.  Volume 2b, page 113.  I looked for a death of a William with no surname but could not find one.

Cheers,

Malcolm.

[Valda]

Sillgen has now given you the proof that Christian was the daughter of Sarah and James and that the family were a bit lax in getting their children baptised, so baptisms may lag sometime behind births for this family, even more so perhaps if the child was illegitimate.

East Grinstead registration borders with the county of Surrey in North Sussex, so as far from Brighton on the south coast and Newick (inland from Brighton, past Lewes), as you can get in Sussex (which is more of a wide county than a vertically long county admittedly).
I don't really see your particular interest in East Grinstead registration district. There are other Sussex registration districts which would be nearer e.g. Uckfield, well quite a few others really and with East Grinstead you are bordering here with Kent so a couple of Kent registration districts may be just as near as East Grinstead.

http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/ssx.htm

Have a look at Google maps and Brighton and pan out to Newick and compare against the registration districts.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4HPEA_en-GBGB236GB236&tab=wl

The family doesn't seem to have any connection with any places in East Grinstead registration district. Fletching registers in Uckfield registration district (but where Sarah was born in the C18th, she seems to have been in Newick from at least the early 1820s). As yet Fletching, Newick and Brighton seem the only Sussex places in the mix. Fletching is about 2 miles away from Newick. Newick is about 18 miles north of Brighton, but Brighton is only there as a town attracting single girls to work in as servants, otherwise the Budgen family seems well established in Newick.
William consistently gives his birthplace as Brighton. Either Christian gave birth to her illegitimate son in Brighton where such a birth would be anonymous and then returned home to Newick, or she may have returned home to Newick for the birth, there doesn't seem any reason for her to travel to another anonymous place to give birth. Births should be registered in the district they occur in. You can't register in another district unless you lie about where the birth took place.
If the death registration is hers then she had certainly returned to Newick or the Newick area by no later than the December quarter of 1853. If a baptism took place near the time of the birth or some time later you would expect it to either be in a Brighton church or Newick. That would be where you would logically check first.

However it is your money so if you wish to keep ploughing through East Grinstead births it is up to you. However, if you do wish to put some money towards tracking down a baptism for William, employing a Sussex researcher to check for baptisms in Brighton or Newick would probably work out just as cheaply and might be more fruitful. And/or check with the two local registrars to see if they indeed hold a birth registration. Brighton is the easiest to check with by email and the more likely registrar to hold the birth, if such a birth was registered in either the surnames Greaves/Greves or Budgen.


The William birth registered in East Grinstead that you cite, doesn't necessarily not have a surname, it is just the transcriber on FreeBMD was unable to decipher it from the handwritten GRO index and therefore has put an asterisk instead to indicate that. Without knowing his surname it is impossible to know whether there was a subsequent death registration for him.


Regards

Valda

[MalGordon]

I now have that copy of the death certificate for Christiana Greves, female age 22years, who died on October 27, 1853, in Newick.

On it she is shown as the wife of William Greves (Groom).  The cause of death is shown as phthisis:

Definition of Phthisis

Phthisis: A good trivia or crossword item. An over-consonanted Greek word meaning "a dwindling or wasting away." Pronounced TIE-sis.

Phthisis is an archaic name for tuberculosis. A person afflicted with tuberculosis in the old days was destined to dwindle and waste away like Mimi, the heroine of Puccini's 1896 opera "La Bohème."

The informant is shown as Sarah Budgen present at the death.

I think that all the little bits and pieces have now been, if not proven, well and truly fitted together, and I have little doubt now that Christiana was indeed my G G Grandmother.

Unfortunately this still leaves the marriage record (if indeed there was one) and birth record of the son William somewhat clouded, but another piece is set solidly in the jig saw.  The search is not over but at least one chapter has closed.   

Thank you all for your kindness and assistance in this matter. It certainly helps to know that such an abundance of help is so readily available.

Cheers from Australia,

Malcolm.