I know a lot about Lizzie Smith and yet for the life of me I can’t discover who her mother was or more about her father than his name and his occupation in the year she married. And I have scoured all the data bases I have access to and run so many searches on birth records and censuses my eyes are boggling. Now hoping someone can help please.
I arrived at Lizzie via her husband Alfred Ernest Barry. He was born to English parents in Dublin in 1877 and in August 1901 he married Lizzie Beatrice Smith there.
Alfred Ernest Barry 21+ Bachelor, Coachbuilder, Howard’s Cross f. Joseph Barry, Carpenter and Lizzie Beatrice Smith 21+ Spinster, Cook, Foxrock f. Joseph Smith, Clerk. I’ve had no luck linking the two witnesses to the couple although one has almost the same name as the housemaid where Lizzie is employed
I found Lizzie on the 1901 Census working as a cook in Kerrymount (Foxrock), Dublin … she’s 21 and was born in England (no further detail given). She’s also described as Church of Ireland but I’m guessing that’s because she’s not Catholic and that that’s the church she attends with the family and other household staff.
By 1911 Lizzie and Alfred have recently returned to England along with their five children, all b. Dublin (I have all the children’s birth records, mother’s maiden name Smith), and are living at 21 Membury Road, Saltley, Birmingham, where they will stay until their final years. Alfred is still working as a Coach body maker. Lizzie Beatrice Barry is 32 and was b. in Ipswich (no county given)
In 1921 however, still at 21 Membury Road and with two more children born since they arrived there, Lizzie Beatrice Barry is 41 yrs and 2 months and was b. in Kilburn, London (adding to the fun Kilburn is of course not an administrative district and instead spans a number of them). One daughter is away from home visiting a couple called Wallace but I’ve not been able to find any connection between the two families.
1939 and the family is still at 21 Membury Road and Elizabeth B. Barry has a birth date of 10 Apr 1879
Elizabeth Beatrice Barry dies at 42 Membury Road, the home of one of her daughters, on 12 Mar 1950 aged 69 years.
Obviously there’s a little discrepancy when it comes to her birth year there but I simply can’t find a birth record for an Elizabeth or Lizzie Smith that fits the above. Could anyone suggest anything else I might try ?
