Hi all
Thanks very much for your help and top tips. I have Joseph's death cert (died age 42) and as mentioned above the informant was his sister Edna Stratton. The cert makes no mention of his marital status. He was living in Southwark at the time. I don't know where he was buried.
Joseph and Maria had 5 children:
Joseph T - 1882
George G - 1885 (my relation)
Lily F - 1887
Samuel - 1889
William - 1892
From ancestry.co.uk I contacted someone who has Samuel in their tree and she gave me some interesting info:
The story goes that, as a boy George stole a whip from a Hansom cab and was sent to reform school in Newcastle. Upon release he stayed up there, married Jane and opened a sweet shop. He visited my Mum's family in Southwark from time to time and had thoughts of opening a shop down there, though that never happened. I know very little about Maria, she left Joseph when Samuel was very young and he always refused to talk about her - my Mum tried to find out more and would love to have known why she left, where she went etc but she never got very far. Joseph died young when Samuel was still a boy and he and his younger brother Bill ended up in a children's home (the same one as Charlie Chaplin). When their names were posted on a list of children to be sent to Australia, Joseph's older sister Edna took them in and they stayed living with her for the rest of their childhood.[/color]
On the 1901 census I found a Maria Smith (has she reverted to her maiden name?) living in Greenwich about 2-3 miles from where Joseph died and she has an occupation of Bakery / Confectionery Shop - own account. I wonder whether this is the reference to a sweet shop from the info above that has got a bit distorted over time. I may be clutching at straws though.
It doesn't help that her maiden name was Smith but to be fair finding info about her father John Smith is even worse.
