Family Tree Leaves

Well, I ordered the birth certificate for the William Thomas PRICE who was baptised at St Mary's, Lambeth, Surrey on 14th July 1861. To recap, the baptism says that the parents were William and Eliza PRICE living in Christchurch, Surrey and that William was a drover. The birth certificate says that William Thomas as born on 8th June 1861 at 2 Bear Lane, Christchurch, Surrey and that the father was William PRICE, a cattle drover, and that the mother was Eliza PRICE formerly PARKER. The informant was Eliza PRICE, who mde her mark, and her address was 2 Bear Lane, Christchurch, Surrey. The birth was registered on 10th July 1861, so Eliza was alive at that point! This is so odd! Is this father, William PRICE, the same man who married Mary VALANTINE on 17th July 1861? How could that possibly be? Could William PRICE, the drover, be baptising a child with someone called Eliza on 14th July 1861 and then get married to Mary VALANTINE three days later on the 17th? However, there is

Because Mary's name when she married was Mary PRICE but I've found she was baptised as Mary VALANTINE, I felt it was important to show how and why both names are linked to her, otherwise it would look like a huge mistake! Mary's parents are the unmarried couple, William WILCOCK and Mary VALANTINE but the mother Mary VALANTINE goes on to marry William Robert PRICE later and the child Mary also takes his name and lists him as her father when she marries. So, I thought the best way of doing this would be to show an adoptive link between Mary VALANTINE\PRICE and William Robert PRICE. Initially, I wasn't sure how to do this in Family Historian and made a few mistakes to start off with, totally confusing relationships! However, the software has a very good forum and, after some kind pointers, this is how it shows the relationships. I've never seen these bubbly white links on an ancestor chart before, so possibly I may have still got a mistake somewhere or other that n

Well, my last post probably sounded like I was 'on something'? :) Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction! However, I have had other thoughts about this William PRICE. What if he really was another illegitimate baby for Mary VALANTINE? Maybe they got his age wildly wrong on the 1871 census? So, I searched on freebmd for births for William VALENTINE, using the phonetic search on the name, in London, Surrey and Middlesex between 1857 and 1861. For each one found, I checked on gro.org.uk to see the mother's maiden name. None were blank to indicate an illegitimate birth. It will be interesting to see what;s on the certificate I've ordered for the William Thomas PRICE born in the 3Q 1861 in St Saviour but I'm not sure it's going to advance things much! In truth, I doesn't really matter as it is the illegitimate Mary VALANTINE who became Mary PRICE who is my husband's direct ancestor and I can, at least, continue researching backwards from her. Never

In trying to track down Mary's mystery brother, if I'm honest I'm not too sure what to try! If you look on the familysearch wiki at the information on parishes in the Surrey area, where the 1871 census says he was born, there are firstly a lot of parishes and secondly not all appear to have their records online. So I'm consious that online searching may not find what I'm after because the records are just not there! However, if we trust that he really is 10 years old, or thereabouts, on the 1871 census, this gives a birth year of 1860 or 1861. As children can be baptised some time after birth (as happened with Martha, born in 1861 but baptised in 1864), I searched on the London Baptism records at Ancestry looking from 1859 to 1864. Much to my amazement, I found a baptism for William Thomas PRICE with parents William and Eliza PRICE on 14 Jul 1861 at St Mary's, Lambeth. The father gives his occupation as drover. Once again I find myself thinking, surely the

To recap on my investigation of the PRICE family found on the 1871 census, I've discovered that Dad and Mum are William PRICE and his wife Mary PRICE nee VALANTINE. That they were married on 17 July 1861. That the youngest child, Martha Ann was born on 3 Oct 1861 and baptised on 3 Jul 1864. That the eldest child, Mary, was in fact Mary's illegitimate child born 24 Jul 1854 and her birth was registered with the name Mary VALANTINE. When Mary VALANTINE/PRICE was baptised, her real father put his name on the baptism and he was William WILCOCK. Mary clearly 'adopted' or more likely was given the surname of PRICE when her mother married William PRICE. However, what about the 10 year old William PRICE on the 1871 census with the birthplace of just Surrey? My throwaway comment on the last blog post was that maybe he was also the illegitimate child of Mary VALANTINE. However, I'm now not so sure! As William was 10 years old on the 1871 census, I was expecting to find

PRICE is such a wonderful name to research. Much the same as SMITH! So, having found William and Mary PRICE on the 1871 census with children, Mary, William and Martha A, I thought I would trawl through the births registered to each name for around the time periods that I thought they were born using freebmd.org.uk and then look each one up on the gro.org.uk website to get the mother's maiden name linked to each birth registration. Having found all this data and put in into a spreadsheet, you can then sort on the mother's maiden name to see if any family groupings emerge. This has worked a treat for me when looking for SMITH births. So, as a starter, I carefully looked at the ages for each child on the census and came up with a first guess for likely birth dates and places. As I know the ages (and birth places for that matter!) given on the census can be out, I added a year either way. Looking at the information on the census ( William and Mary PRICE on 1871 census ), I