Recording of burials

[onefortheroad]

Do you know how long Annie had been living at 134 Chapeltown Road - or even how long she'd been in Leeds? Could she have been just passing through?

Hi Arthur.
Annie first appears in Leeds on the 1901 census, lodging in Rockingham St.
On the 1911 census, she's living in Woodbine Place.
Then there's a gap until her death in1954. Her death cert. gives her address as 134 Chapeltown Rd. but I've no idea how long she had been there.
David

[onefortheroad]

The location AGBRIGG was mentioned briefly earlier, this covers a wide area starting in Rothwell and covers Wakefield.
Have you had a search outside the Leeds boundary towards Wakefield.
 Brian
Lawnswood/Cottingley both covered in the search, no luck there.

Hi Brian and thanks.
I think my next move has to be to widen the net to searching outside the Leeds District area.
Wakefield would probably be a good place to start although I just have a feeling she's already slipped through the net. Her son made the trip down from Dumfries, where he lived and worked as a chiropodist, to register her death and, presumably, arrange the funeral. Would there be a reason why he couldn't bury her anywhere in the Leeds District? Any reason why he had to bury her in another area? I can't think why he'd need to do that. And he had a business and a wife to get back to.
I had wondered if he'd taken her back to Dumfries to bury/cremate her closer to his home. However, some kind people did a lookup in that area and there was no sign. Having said that, I'm not sure what surname they would have searched for. Edward Alexander registered her death in both her real surname and her alias so the burial could realistically be anywhere under any name.
I'll start with Wakefield Bereavement Services in the morning.
David.

[dawnsh]

If you can get to the British Library at Boston Spa, you could look at the electoral registers backwards from 1954 to see how long she had been living there

https://www.bl.uk/visit/reading-rooms/boston-spa

[Calverley Lad]

Thinking out of the box here?
Cheaper to move cremated remains rather than move a body, so been looking under cremation only!
Problem being nothing found for cremations 1954?
 Brian

[arthurk]

What became of the first two children? Just because Edward was the one who registered the death doesn't mean the other two weren't around and involved in some way.

I'm thinking that if we know where they were in 1954, that might be somewhere to focus on. If they need tracking down, names, dates of birth, spouses etc etc would all help.

[onefortheroad]

If you can get to the British Library at Boston Spa, you could look at the electoral registers backwards from 1954 to see how long she had been living there

https://www.bl.uk/visit/reading-rooms/boston-spa

Wow, Dawn that's a great heads up. I'll get onto that asap.
Thanks,
David

[onefortheroad]

Thinking out of the box here?
Cheaper to move cremated remains rather than move a body, so been looking under cremation only!
Problem being nothing found for cremations 1954?
 Brian

I like your thinking, Brian. I'll check cremations as I search Wakefield area.
Thanks,
David

[onefortheroad]

What became of the first two children? Just because Edward was the one who registered the death doesn't mean the other two weren't around and involved in some way.

I'm thinking that if we know where they were in 1954, that might be somewhere to focus on. If they need tracking down, names, dates of birth, spouses etc etc would all help.

Good thinking, Arthur. Her first child, Constance Evelyn Asthill AUSTON, my maternal grandmother, was born in Newark 1895. She and her younger brother Francis Wentworth Asthill AUSTON, were adopted in infancy by Benjamin and Edith Bedwell of Earsham Norfolk.
Apart from a stint in the army, Francis appears to have stayed in Norfolk. My parents took me to see him back in the early 60's. I remember going but nothing else.
Constance turns up on the 1911 census, aged 16, living (shock, horror) with her mother in Woodbine Place. Here, Annie had taken in four boarders.
In 1917, Constance is living in Marsden, Huddersfield from where she married in 1919. She gave birth to my mother in 1925 after moving to Horton, Bradford. There she stayed for the rest of her life until her death in 1968.
So, in 1954, while Annie was deceased in Leeds, her eldest was in Bradford, the middle child was (I believe) in Norfolk and her youngest was in Dumfries.
Nothing was ever spoken about Annie by either my mother or my grandmother. I didn't know of her existence until I found my grandmother's birth certificate. That's when the hunt started !!
My grandmother always referred to her adoptive parents, the Bedwells, as her Mum and Dad. Their son, Hennes, died on the Somme and she always referred to him as her brother. I'll be visiting his grave in the CWGC Pozieres, in July next year.
Thinking about it, I had knowledge of Francis, but there was never a mention of another brother. I visited Scotland a couple of times with my parent but, although Edward Alexander was alive then, we never went to see him. I honestly believe my grandmother and mother had no knowledge of his existence. Yet he was the one who registered Annie's death......
It's true what they say, Arthur: you can pick your friends, you're stuck with your family.
David
ps  apologies for the length of the reply.

[arthurk]

Don't worry about the length - it helps to have a good picture of the family.

Burial information for Bradford cemeteries is quite hard/pricey to get hold of, but I've just been wondering if Constance might have been buried in the same plot as her mother. I have some memorial transcripts for Undercliffe and Scholemoor (from Bradford FHS), which sometimes help; I couldn't see Annie in either of them, but what was Constance's surname when she died? Of course, not everyone had a memorial.