Hello

Jane Dawson appears as the mother of William Francis Ballard in 1849 on the birth certificate. William Ballard as father. Fontenoy Street, Liverpool. Jane is my 3x great grandmother.

On the 1871 census in Liverpool her place of birth is Jersey Channel Islands.

Have never found a marriage record for her or evidence of her birth in Jersey. One contact on  Jersey told me that she may have been in a British military family there and may not appear on the records for Jersey. Also that maybe there is a Catholic register of births in Jersey???

It is rumoured that Jane and William may have been in France, Shropshire and Kent but I just don’t know about that.

Any help on Jane Dawson is most welcome!

thanks

David

Hello everyone!

My great great grandfather is registered at Fontenoy St on his birth cert in 1849. William Francis  Ballard … father William Ballard, born Ireland and mother Jane Ballard formerly Dawson born Jersey Channel Islands. William Francis and subsequent generations all married in the Church of England. My question is whether Fontenoy St was an Irish Catholic neighbourhood in the 1840s/50’s? Or did Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants arriving in Liverpool live in the same neighbourhoods as each other as they were all Irish? Ballard  is an English name and not an anglicised Irish name but in Ireland  there are Catholic Ballards and Protestant as well. I wondered whether William Francis Ballard’s father was a Catholic and just allowed his family to integrate with the C of E as his wife (William Francis’s mother)was not Irish  Or whether he was a Protestant. I understand that 20% of Irish entering Liverpool were Protestants. I live in Hampshire but I have a lot of ancestry from Liverpool going back to the 1700s and beyond as well as some 2nd/3rd cousins still living there.I hope to visit soon.

Many thanks

David

PS..My 4x great grandparents are on 1841 census in Liverpool.. born Ireland. So I understand would not be escaping the famine but part of the pre existing Irish population of Liverpool.

Hello there,
I've an Ancestor, James Brown crop up in the 1871 Census as a Barman. His Mother Anastasia Hall is there too as a 'visitor!' The address is 355 Park Rd, Toxteth. Joseph Smith is the 'Licensed Victualler' born in Brazil (I think!) It looks like next door is a Greengrocer (357- 359)- name possible George Pickles. Would love to know what the pub was called, any thoughts of where to search are most welcome!
Mx

Hi everybody, Does anyone know what kind of shops are in the picture. The long and flat ones sitting deep in the water. Or what they were used for?
Happy New Year and many thanks,
Pat

Some members may recall the lengthy series of posts early in 2021 where I asked for help to find out more about my grandfather John Fleming Denison Johnson, born in Liverpool in 1891 but who ‘disappeared’ in the mid-1920s. He died in Liverpool in 1973. With the help of several forum contributors, we made some remarkable discoveries along the way but failed in answering one important question: who was my grandfather’s father?

Since then, I have made further discoveries but, once again, I am seeking help to delve deeper.

To recap: my grandfather’s mother was born Sarah Ann Dennison in Leeds in 1856. (For some unknown reason she later changed her name to Lilly or Lillian Johnson – which is a good enough reason to explain why my grandfather later added Johnson as his surname.) His birth certificate records his given names as John Fleming but shows no entry for his father’s name – suggesting that he was illegitimate.

In 1891, the year my grandfather was born, census records show Sarah Ann Denison living with her sister at 373 Prescott Road. Next door, at 375, lived a John Fleming. This gave rise to the hypothesis that John Fleming had illegitimately fathered my grandfather with ‘the girl next door’ and that was why his mother had given him the Christian names John Fleming.

The only way to verify this hypothesis seemed to be by DNA matching. John Fleming was one of 8 siblings born to Irish immigrant parents. The search for living descendants of any one of these proved fruitless; there seemed to be none. An elder brother had married but seemed to have had no children and a younger sister had married, had children and two grandchildren both of whom died in infancy. There the Fleming dynasty seemed to have come to an end.

However, a short time ago, by one of those strokes of luck that every genealogist dreams of, I discovered that John Fleming’s sister Margaret (b. 1859, Dublin) had married a Denis C Kenny in 1881 (also Irish). Within a few years they had emigrated to New York and had 4 children. One of these, John Leo Kenny (b. 1886, New York) had married a Grace Elizabeth Davis (b. 1900, Quebec). Between them, this couple had 11 children only one of whom, Lillian Edna Kenny, b. 1928) appears to have married; this was to a Gordon Edwin Beall (b. 1919).  Her obituary is at :

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115469694/lillian-edna-beall-obituary-2…

The obituary records her having one daughter, Alice (living in Oakville, Ontario), and four grandsons, David, Scott, Timothy, and Ryan (presumably all with same father).

The Canada, Obituary Collection, 1898-Current lists the obituary of an Alice Corbett :

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/234783240:8961?ssrc…

This records her mother as Lillian Edna Beall. It would thus appear that Alice Beall married someone by the name of Corbett. Unfortunately, the obituary itself is not reproduced nor is the date of her death.

Remarkably, I came across the Kenny Family Tree on Ancestry; owner: Alice Beall. She had subscribed to Ancestry in September 2015 but unfortunately her tree comprised of only 4 entries – one of which was her mother. This suggests that she either got fed up or died before adding further to the tree.

This where my luck has run out. I can find no further information about Alice (Beall) Corbett or about any of her 4 sons.

If I have any hope of carrying out a DNA investigation, I clearly need to find out more – best of all contact one of the sons.

Help ! !
 

Dorothy Nina Stenton, 26, Spinster, of 42 Devon Street, married my Great Uncle William Charles Forshaw, 26, Bachelor of 25 Seymour Street, on 6 April 1915 in The Register Office, Liverpool. Her father was recorded as John Stenton (deceased), Corporation Foreman. I have the marriage certificate.

The 1911 Census shows Dorothy Stenton at 79 Kempston Street (a lodging house), Liverpool, age 21, single, waitress at at hotel, born in Sheffield.

A 1910 record from the Liverpool Board Of Guardians Workhouse, Admissions & Discharges (Religious Creed Register) shows Dorothy Mina (sic) Stenton there from 22 March 1910 to 4 April 1910 Age: 21 Address: 79 Kempston St. Religion: CE.

I have not been able to find any earlier records for Dorothy.

Dorothy's husband, William Charles Forshaw was working as a tailor's cutter in the 1911 Census (Charles Wm. Forshaw, 22, at 37 Seymour Street, Liverpool). He was a tailor on the 1915 marriage certificate. He was convicted of receiving stolen goods in 1914 and, perhaps because of this, embarked on a career at sea, where he was killed due to enemy action in 1940. The Liverpool Echo obituary, published 10 July 1940 on page 8, stated Charles Forshaw was a member of the Derby Masonic Lodge No. 724, an overseas member of the Liverpool Press Club and had worked for Alfred Holt for 25 years. His parents were mentioned, but nothing about a wife.

The 1921 Census shows Dorothy Forshaw Head, 31y 4m Married, born Sheffield, Shop Assistant living at 39 Leopold Road, Liverpool. No other people were recorded at the address.

The 1923 Electoral Register shows Dorothy Forshaw at 2 Bannerman Street, Liverpool.
The 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927-28 and 1928-29 Electoral Registers show Dorothy and Charles Forshaw at 2 Bannerman Street.
The 1930-31 Electoral Register for 2 Bannerman Street shows just two people, John and Ivy Crooks here.

The 1930-31 Electoral Register shows William Charles Forshaw at 25 Seymour Street with mother, Sarah Jane Forshaw and other family members. Dorothy is not shown here.

So, the last record I have for Dorothy Nina Forshaw is the 1928-29 Electoral Register. I am curious to know what happened to her.
Can anyone find records for her before 1910 or after 1929?

Phil

As the forums have been a little quiet for a while, and to stop Bertie getting bored, I thought I’d drop in a naughty little problem I’ve been wrestling with recently. It’s rather like someone got three separate jigsaws each featuring a different picture of an old cottage, and threw all the pieces in the same box with no picture on the lid, and the dog then chewed some of the pieces. Lots of bits fit together mechanically speaking but the pictures don’t match. With others, the pictures appear to match but the pieces don’t fit very well. Oh, and did I mention, I think quite a lot of bits got sucked up by the vacuum cleaner.

The question is: who were Alice Gore’s parents?

These are the facts I am reasonably sure about: Alice Gore married John Jackson in St Mary’s, Edge Hill on 14 April 1884. She was 18 and a spinster. She said her father’s name was Thomas and his occupation was labourer. The parish register doesn’t say if he was deceased or not. Both bride and groom signed the register and the witnesses do not appear to be family members. Alice’s address at the time of the marriage was Lilly Grove, Cherry Lane (the image of the marriage register entry is on Ancestry if anyone needs to look at it). All subsequent census /1939R entries for her are fairly consistent about her year and place of birth, namely 1866 and Liverpool or Walton. The 1921 census puts her age one year out (ie she is shown as a year older than in all the other entries) but the month accords with her date of birth in the 1939R which is 28 Feb 1866. She died in the first quarter in 1947 (Liverpool North 10d 235) aged 81 which suggests that she died in March just after her birthday. I don’t yet have her or John’s death certificates, but I believe she died before John, his death probably being in 1949 (Q4 1949 Liverpool North 10d 141 age 87).

The first problem is that there is no birth in the Liverpool region which was registered in either of the first two quarters of 1866 in the name Alice Gore, or any reasonable variations of both names. The nearest is in Q4 1866 (West Derby 8b 469) with the mother’s maiden name McComb. The only Gore/McComb marriage which fits is that of Joseph Gore and Ellen McComb at St Peter’s on 27 Aug 1866. Joseph and Ellen can be found living with Joseph’s mother and father in Greenfield Lane, Litherland in 1871 along with daughters Alice 5, Margaret 3 and Ellen 1, all born Litherland. So definitely a possible for the parents, if we accept Litherland=Liverpool and Alice getting her father’s name wrong. That might be excusable since Joseph died in 1877 when our Alice would have been 11. However the mother Ellen doesn’t remarry and there appears to be no Thomas who might have been a stepfather-like figure. But Joseph did have an older brother named Thomas (who was married to Eleanor Balshaw) also living in Greenfield Lane, Litherland in 1871. Thomas and Eleanor had two sons at that time. There are also no relevant baptisms over the period.

There are six other Thomas Gores around the Liverpool area who the right age to be candidates for Alice Gore’s father, but unfortunately none of them appear to have a daughter named Alice at the time of the 1871 census.

It’s now time to examine a couple of pieces that the dog has chewed. That means turning to that most reliable source of inspiration when all else fails: other people’s Ancestry trees. There’s one entitled Rimmer Family Tree which does look promising. It has a 5 year old Alice’s parents as Peter and Martha Gore living at 9 Lilly Grove in 1871, along with son Thomas 12 and daughter Margaret 8, with Alice and Maragret born in Walton. So we have a Lilly Grove link, the correct age and place of birth; it’s just the father’s name which is the problem. Except that when we look more closely at Peter and Martha there’s a rather bigger problem. They are not man and wife, but brother and sister. Their parents are James and Martha Gore who can be found living at Back Lane (Eaton Road today), West Derby from 1841 to 1861. In the 1881 and 1891 censuses Peter and Martha are still at 9 Lilly Grove but are now shown as brother and sister. In 1881 Alice is no longer at home but her sister Margaret aged 17 and single is at 9 Lilly Grove and shown as Peter Gore’s neice. There’s no sign of Peter Gore ever marrying although it is obviously possible that the Thomas, Alice and Margaret shown in the 1871 census were his children, but equally they might have been Martha’s. So if Margaret in 1881 really was Peter’s neice, who was her father – one of Peter’s siblings perhaps? He had 3 brothers and a sister. William born 1823 and John born in 1824 were older than Peter. Next came Martha who was two years younger than Peter and is the one who lived with him at Lilly Grove until he died in 1896 and she then died in 1898. Peter’s youngest brother was James born 1833. All three of Peter’s brothers married in the period 1850 - 1856. Both John and James can be accounted for until at least 1871 and neither had a child named Alice or Margaret. Unfortunately the oldest, William, goes missing, along with the rest of his family, after the birth of his daughter Elizabeth in 1853. There are no other Gore children registered with his wife’s maiden name of Padley (or the variant Pedley) after Elizabeth.

There is one other dog-chewed piece which may or may not be significant. In the 1891 census for 9 Lilly Grove (that is, some seven years after our Alice married John Jackson) the household consists of Peter Gore head, unmarried, 63, dock labourer (in previous years he was an agricultural labourer); Martha Gore, sister, widow, aged 61 whose occupation was laundress; Mary Moorecroft, daughter, widow, 36 also a laundress; and Richard Moorecroft, nephew aged 5. Beside the entry for Mary’s relationaship to the head of the household is the word sister which has been crossed out, apparently by the enumerator. Assuming that Richard is Mary’s child, his relationship to the head of the household should be grandson, rather than nephew. This Mary is almost certainly the same Mary who appeared in the household of Peter’s father Joseph Gore at Back Lane in 1861 where the relationship was granddaughter, born 1854. She went on to marry Edward Moorcroft at Holy Trinity, Walton Beck on 6 April 1878. At the time of the marriage Mary’s address was Lilly Grove. In the Banns on the previous 3 Sundays both bride and groom were recorded as of this parish. Edward died in early 1886 aged 36 and was buried at Walton on the Hill. The recording of Martha as a widow is a complete mystery. In all the previous censuses she was shown as unmarried except for the anomaly in 1871 where she was recorded as Peter’s wife. And if she married after the 1881 census she would have been aged between 50 and 60 and seemingly not in need of someone to support her into retirement since she was living with her brother. Needless to say there’s no obvious marriage for her.

For the sake of completeness, in the two years 1865 -1866 there were ten births registered in England with the name Alice Gore. Five of these were in London or Kent and so, even though one of them features a father named Thomas, I have discounted them for now. Of the remaining five, one was the Gore/McComb birth in the West Derby registration district at the end of 1866, and the other four were registered in Wigan. I have done some prelimimary work on these Wigan families and only one features a father named Thomas Gore. He was a widower in 1871, aged 36 and a pit labourer living in Ince-in-Makerfield with his daughters Alice aged 6 and Elizabeth aged 4. Both daughters were born in Ince, and their father in Orell. By 1881 there’s no sign of Thomas, and the two daughters are living in the household of their uncle Richard Gore and working as servants. Since the uncle was a shopkeeper, the nieces may have been helping out in the shop. But apart from that one family, I have no reason to look at the Wigan Gores in more detail at this stage.

I don’t think the whereabouts of our Alice at the time of the 1881 census is going to be much help in finding her parents. For what it’s worth there aren’t exactly many possibilities to choose between. The Rimmer Family Tree suggests that she’s at 49 Rimrose Road, Bootle cum Linacre in the Smith household, aged 14 and working as a domestic servant, born in Litherland. The age and place of birth suggests this is more likely to be the Alice who was the daughter of Thomas and Ellen (nee McComb) who was born at end of 1866. However the only other Alice Gores of the right age are mainly down in London or Kent and have families and places of birth down there also, so I am discounting them for now.

Sadly, there are no wills for any of the key players.

Can anyone solve this jigsaw or suggest a way of attacking the problem which I haven’t thought of?

Marion/Marian Douglas was born Q3 1939 to parents Joseph James Douglas and Louisa Fisher. In 1964 she married Kenneth Turner at St. George Church, Huyton.

I can't find any more info about her after 1964. Any help will be most appreciated.

Peter

Hi everyone.

This is a bit of a longshot but I was wondering if anyone could help me find Robert Barton on any official records.  The only time I can find him mentioned is on his daughter's marriage certificate in 1872 - Isabella Barton married Thomas Maddox in Liverpool in Dec 1872.  Robert is described as a 'ship carpenter' and there is nothing to indicate whether he was dead or alive at the time of the wedding.  Other records suggest Isabella was born in Liverpool in the early 1850s.

Quite a while ago now I asked for help in finding Isabella's birth records but unfortunately nothing turned up.  Now I am trying a different tack and seeing if I can find Robert in apprentice records or on a ship (I thought this might explain why I cannot find him on any census records) but I am not very familiar with using these records.

Any help and/or ideas would be much appreciated.

Glen

I am hoping the expertise here may clear up a conundrum

I have been researching a Liverpool Merchant named John Lightbody(1756-1825). Later in life he moved to Mount House Prenton and was buried at Woodchurch. He was survived by his wife Jane (nee Pemberton) her maiden name is mentioned on the baptism of their daughter, Catherine Hannah in Jan 1791. I haven’t yet found found a marriage before that date. However I have found a later marriage at Christchurch, Hunter St in 1815. This appears to be the same person as the mother of his child. I have confirmed this by examining their wills. John leaves his estate to Jane.Jane then leaves her estate to her granddaughters Jane Alice and Catherine Hannah Gorton, who are the daughters of  Catherine Hannah Lightbody (born 1791) and Giles Gorton.

Is there a prospect that they may not have been married when their daughter was born although the baptism suggests otherwise.

Would there be any other circumstances in which a couple would marry for a 2^nd time?