It is a pity that she does not show up in the PR, given that the census statements that she was born at Ruabon looked like the first support in primary sources that could validate her father Thomas Davies's alleged connection with Trefynant, the farm -- and later chapel, burial ground and built-up area -- towards the southern end of the parish of Ruabon. Otherwise there seems to be absolutely no contemporary evidence of such a link, despite assertions to be found elsewhere on and off-line. But the idea of his temporary residence there during the construction of the great canal aqueduct over the Dee nearby remains entirely plausible -- see the information in the
Davies thread on the Inverness Board.
The chapel possibilities are always worth checking, insofar as possible. But against that it should be borne in mind that just a few years earlier Thomas Davies had children baptised in Chirk parish church; and a couple of years on there are possibles for later siblings of Anne's being baptised in the established church at Shrewsbury.
It may just be worth rehearsing the full known evidence about her date and place of birth, for the record -- beginning with Osprey's first examination of the matter, on the Montgomeryshire board:
…
The 1861 & 1871 give Anne's place of birth as Ruabon, although the 1871 does have Ruabon, Shropshire when it's in Denbighshire
[my emphasis]For ready ref., here are the census details:
1851 = Edinburgh Canongate, ED 34, schedule 10. (I have not seen an image of the original.) Stated age 50, so implied birth year range 1800-01. PoB transcribed as "Wales, North".
1861 = Edinburgh St Cuthbert's, ED 28, schedule 62. (Not seen an image of the original.) Stated age 58, so implied birth year range 1802-03. PoB transcribed as "Ruabon, Derbyshire".
1871 = West Ham, Essex, RG10/1629 fo.136v p.46. Stated age 67, so implied birth year range 1803-04. PoB "Salop Ruabon".
The middle initial entered for her in 1871 is badly written, but my bet is that the enumerator intended to write a
D, not the
G transcribed by Anc***ry.com. Best analogy for a poorly formed
D that I spotted was the first letter of
Domestic Servant, five lines up from the bottom on the preceding page. (What do others think?)
It is rather odd that a middle initial should appear for the first time so late on in her life.
In view of her location in 1871 and her invisibility in 1881, there seems to be a fair chance that she is the Anne Owen whose death in West Ham RD aged 71 appears in the GRO indexes for Q4 1871 -- vol. 4a p.47. But if so, we must take it that the family decided to wave goodbye to her by posthumously overriding the (cosmetic?) age that Anne gave just a few months earlier at census time -- because that death age pushes her implied year of birth back to 1800 (or even into the last three months of 1799).
So, to summarise the census and (likely) death entry evidence, we have a maximum birth-year range of 1799 to 1804.
Rol
