Drew(e) family from Cattistock, Dorset - namely John Drew(e) b.1804 c.Cattistock

[Richard Knott]

Here is someone else looking at the same family (including Eliza Isaac b Badminton, Glos):
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GLOUCESTER/2006-08/1154524238

I don't think the John and Eliza Drew living in Bristol in 1841 are the same couple (even though she comes from Gloucestershire and one of her children was born in Bedminster. She is a widow in 1851 (and later censuses).

Richard

[smudwhisk]

I'm not sure exactly what an excavator does - apart from presumably dig holes! Sewers? Underground tunnels for the tube? What could have taken him to Chatham?

Yes they were effectively labourers excavating probably for the London Underground around that sort of time.  I've some that went into London from Hertfordshire described as the like, having been listed as labourers when in Herts.

[Descendant of Murby]

Thank you all again for the further useful information.

I was very interested in the maiden name of Eliza - Isaac. Would any of you have any idea why there doesn't seem to be any record of a John Drew marrying an Eliza Isaac? If Edwin was their first-born child in 1842 it seems likely that they only married a year or two before his birth.....

I also cannot find any birth record for an Eliza Isaac in Great Badminton - although there are lots of other Isaacs being born there around 1810-1815, which could be her siblings.

Also, another thought - is it a bit usual that John and Eliza don't name their first-born sons and daughters Eliza and John? They don't name any of their children after themselves.

I'll keep this topic open for a little bit longer in case anyone has any more useful thoughts or information but again, thank you all for your help.

Best wishes

Descendant of Murby