India: Help please with Baker 1880's West Bengal

[chris2705]

Well I am 99% that Philip never returned (maybe he and Mabel weren't so keen on India?) but seeing as mum as a widow, and 4 of the children are here in 1911 (Mabel has gone AWOL) I am not sure that they returned but it is all a bit of a guess.

I think I might have found William's brother though..........

Here is Helena in India

[hepburn]

Blimey,we better not mess with this lady

Who's William's brother,tell all.
I can't believe that we can't find any parish records for the children in India!!!!!

[hepburn]

I can't think where to look next,Ive Googled Bengal to Bedford China to Germany,we need helllllllllllllllllllp

[chris2705]

She looks bloody scary to me!!!

Well it is a bit of a longshot to say the least, but I have found a list that someone has compiled (perhaps it could be added to the resource/links if it is not there already) of those born in India but appearing on the England/Wales census from 1841-1871

http://spuddybike.org.uk/familyhistory/census/index.html

There is a Frederick Baker born in 1856 in Calcutta but staying here in 1861. Might be pure coincidence but worth a shot........

[hepburn]

    LOL,I thought that but was being polite........It is worth putting on the resource board.
 When you stick Baker in Ancestry, born India there are millions of them ,well a couple of hundred, census,passenger lists the whole shebang,but not yours yours are pootling about elsewhere..
How old would you say Helena is in the photo,is it one from the 1880s or ,is it later?



By the way if you put it on the restoration board they'd get rid of the creases

[chris2705]

Thankfully the Baker genes seem to have prevailed 

According to the 1911 census she was born around 1864 so presumably married at 16 as Laura is born when she was 17. I think William must have been brave/drunk/unlucky as I don't imagine it was for her charming disposition. They have left India by 1897 so in the photo must have been between 17 and 33 (crickey!)

[chris2705]

I think William was already there in India as he would have struggled to meet, marry, travel by ship to India (the long way round) and have a child all by the time Helena was 17. Helena was a British subject born in Singapore, so probably the daughter of another engineer/military or whatever else the British were doing there. Maybe Stansmore was her maiden name or that of Willaim's mother?

[hepburn]

http://www.search.fibis.org/frontis/bin/aps_detail.php?id=638337

This shows William Erskine Baker is a civil engineer,he did somethging at Scindia/Scindie? waqsn't that Fredericks middle name?

http://www.search.fibis.org/frontis/bin/aps_browse_sources.php?mode=browse_components&id=120&s_id=0

This a photo of Railway workers,one is named Baker,1910........Am I clutching at straws now...

[chris2705]

  I don't think it is either of these as the first is a General (I reckon someone in the family would have had some recollection/evidence if we had one of those) and the other I think is wrong time/place/job. I will take a trip to the British Library tomorrow as this is now getting frustrating.

We can look at the other Stoke family connection after that!