Find Ancestors

Oh and BTW I have a copy of Alfred and Harriets 1877 marriage,sorry I forgot about it til now...

And Alfred clearly has John Watkins,shoemaker for father.
No deceased on it.
Winesses
Eliza Jane Watkins and somebody called James Rowney.

Funny really as the Evans line was a walk in the park,and you would expect them to be REALLY difficult.

Eating time,

Edit,,,,the good templars were part of the Temperance movement I think,Google it I will,later,my tummy thinks my throat has been cut.

See, now if I'd known Alfred joined the Good Templars ... and if I'd known what the Good Templars were ... ;)

I'm wondering about this Fred. In 1871, Ann Watkins, wife of John, was 45. Could Fred have been a son of hers? Fred Jones, Fred Smith ...

Do we know whether John and Ann were still living in 1881, and if so, where?

>> Eliza married in 1888, and if she met Charles Hayes through the Good Templar outfit ... oh, no, I see, it was Alfred, not John, who joined them. The 19th century equivalent of AlAnon for him, I guess. ;)

What further info Dea?whom are you addressing there?
Me?Janey?Tracey?

You are SO good janey.

Charles F Hayes 47 - clerk in Good Templar Office<<<<<Alfred joined them as he was so against the demon drink,must be how Eliza met hubby.
Elizabeth E Hayes 44 - born Devizes

Dea

I think your keyboard has gone more astray?? LOL


Tracey x

Random possible marriages


Marriages Sep 1862
Downes Mary Ann Hereford 6a 773
? Jones Ann Hereford 6a 773
Lewis Samuel Hereford 6a 773
Watkins John Hereford 6a 773

Yes, now we can look for an Ann Jones in 1861 who matches Ann Watkins in 1871 ... hahaha ...

Marriages Jun 1870
? Keay Anne Hereford 6a 892
TAYLOR Elizabeth Hereford 6a 892
TAYLOR James Hereford 6a 892
Watkins John Hereford 6a 892

Marriages Jun 1871
SMITH Ann Hereford 6a 935
Watkins John Hereford 6a 935


Oh look! A Smith and a Jones!

But - could that be where the "Smith" in the tale came from?

There you go Aston.....flippin Aston... got i hate the name, Grrrr (sorry past annoyances lol)


Tracey x

Voilla?Lozalles rd.

1881 England Census
about Alice S. Watkins
Name: Alice S. Watkins
Age: 3
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1878
Relation: Daughter
Father's Name: Alfred C.
Mother's Name: Harriet
Gender: Female
Where born: Aston, Warwickshire, England

Civil parish: Aston
County/Island: Warwickshire
Country: England

Street Address: 71 Lozells Road

Aha, Tracey - Lozells, not Lozelles. Still doesn't work for 1911, but she may have moved there after that date.

The Lozells road still exists...and is known for being part of a less than desirable area!

In fact a very well know riot went through there some years ago! The district is Lozells (vry close to Birmingham town centre), but having had experience of earlier dates near that area, Aston seems to swallow alot of it up..... everything seems to be Aston, except Aston itself which went under another district lol... Very weird....

Tracey x

Well it's interesting how the names do match up, the children of George and Caroline. And the kids in the workhouse. And then the kids back with a stepmother it seems. It all matches up quite well. Except for the fact that the original couple evidently married and lived as Perkins -- but then the reason given for the name change, in the tale, is just a surmise anyway.

Too bad there's nothing about why she thought there was a name change at all -- where did she have the name Perkins from in the first place? Did Alfred know he started out as a Perkins maybe?

What is Viv looking for? Well the holy grail, of course. Aren't we al? ;)

To confirm things more, we need to find Eliza being a widowed confectioner ...


In 1881:

Name: Eliza J. Watkins
Age: 24
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1857
Relation: Servant
Where born: Devizes, Wiltshire, England

Civil parish: Edgbaston
County/Island: Warwickshire
Country: England
Registration district: Kings Norton

Street Address: 20 Carpenter Rd
Occupation: Cook

Herbert New 29 - solicitor
Emily New 28
Thomas G. New
Eliza J. Watkins 24
Elizabeth Wessen 25
Annie C. Brookes ? 18


If I knew where this Lozelles Rd was ... 1881 returns nothing for Lozelle or Lozelles, anywhere. Would be nice if auntie had mentioned her surname too. Yeesh.


So I'll guess this was her in 1891:

Name: Eliza J Hayes
Age: 34
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1857
Relation: Wife
Spouse's Name: Charles F - insurance clerk
Gender: Female
Where born: Devizes, Wiltshire, England

Civil parish: Birmingham
address: 39 Northbrook St

Charles F Hayes 37
Eliza J Hayes 34


And here we are:

Marriages Sep 1888
> Hayes Charles Frederick Birmingham 6d 173
Hodgetts Elizabeth Birmingham 6d 173
> Watkins Eliza Jane Birmingham 6d 173
WILLIAMS John Birmingham 6d 173

Deaths Dec 1908
HAYES Charles Frederick 54 Birmingham 6d 1

This must be Eliza in 1911:

HAYES ELIZA 1856 55 Aston Warwickshire

and 1901 in Birmingham for good measure:

Charles F Hayes 47 - clerk in Good Templar Office
Elizabeth E Hayes 44 - born Devizes


Problem is, I guess, what we're doing is confirming what's known -- Alfred and Eliza post 1871 -- rather than what came before.

Wanna play with the Cattarrozis next??
x x x x

Wow Viv,

You have 'edited ' a good bit more info on here!!

I will look again in the morning!

Dea Xxx

NOW LOOK HERE YOU TWO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are confusing me as to what you want help with!!

Can you get your heads 'UNtogether' and let me know what you would like to find next??

Dea XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bother blast and blow the lot of you.
I didnt get this until AFTER I started looking.

As told to my friend by G aunt who was told it by "Granny" Alice Sophia Watkins,Alfreds daughter.

A Watkins family leg...end.
***********************************
In the days of queen victoria our g,g,grandfather was the court shoemaker.He and one of the ladies in waiting fell in love and ran away to be married,I dont know either of their names.
Her wealthy parents believed to have been Smith,were furious and disinherited their daughter.she may have been the only child as the family always believed that there was a fortune in Chancery and some spent money on a law suit trying to claim it.
There is some confusion over their surname,possibly they changed it from Perkins to Watkins to avoid being traced when they ran away.
The poor girl must have found married life very hard,after living in luxury and had to do her own work.She had 6 children,a girl Eliza and 5 boysand she died in childbirth---this was before the days of anaesthesia and she is thought to have been tiny.
Their son ALFRED CHARLES WATKINS presumably was born in 1850 as a he died in 1920 aged 70.
After his wifes death the widower was heartbroken and started to drink heavily.Most of the children were put in the workhouse,but Alfred was often dragged round the lanes of Wiltshire and Hereford while his father looked for work and got drunk in the pubs.He recieved no education and possibly got drunk too.They slept in ditches and under haystacks.It seems that he may have been the eldest.
EVENTUALLY Alfreds father married again;the new wife was a good,kind,hardworking woman.She made a home ,got the children out of the workhouse and took in washing to support the family.I would like to think that her husband reformed,stopped drinking and worked at his trade.
Alfred looked back on the time after his mothers death with horror and never wanted to speak of it.
When my mother was small she used to visit Eliza who had a little sweet shop in Lozelles rd.She was small and plump and her husband had died.She used to say her mother was a lady.She and Alfred were devoted to each other.

One of their brothers,Fred,had a commission in the army.


You wont want the rest as that is all about Alfreds wife Harriet evans.
********************************************************************

The only Smith found was the occupation of Carolines father and she was certainly not an only child.

Now you can all explode and call me all the names under the sun but I think we,well you lot, have the right trail.
And if they were at the court of queen vic it couldnt have been for long as she came to the throne in 37 {I think}and they married in 1840.

Def got writers cramp now and I still only type with 2 fingers so I am off on the feeding jobs.

XxXxX
so do you still love me???
NOT they shout.

Viv, you sarcastic sister. Stop frightening the people. Everybody's all worried I'm going to hit you. Play nice, or I won't make you do any more lookups for me.

Sorry Janey,

We DID 'talk about you' - in public though so that you could see what we said! and - 'Yes' Janey - we ARE better than that !!!

See Viv, - you and Janey are still 'friends' - I do agree with her though that it is usefull to know ALL the info availablewhen you are searching, even if it is not proved, as long as the 'unproved stuff' is marked as such! - It can help to connect.

What do you need next???

Dea x

Ahem. Talking about people while they sleep, tsk.

Two things that peeve me:
- being told the tales as if they're gospel
- not being told the tales at all

I always want to know the tales, I just want to know they are tales.
Not
"Hiram was born in 1842 and married Mitzi in 1859"
but
"My great-aunt says her granddaddy told her his brother Hiram was born in 1842 and married Mitzi in 1859".

I've run into a couple of people lately who didn't want to tell the tales to start with, because they wanted to know what somebody else would come up with. I prefer to know what the tales are, and then you have a hypothesis to confirm or deny, and have something to watch out for when searching.

Just think, if I'd got the tale from my mum's cousin about old Ernest's military desertion *first*, everything I found would have made more sense as I went along. By finding the stuff that led to the hypothesis (that he changed his name, and who he really was) first, and then getting the tale that explained it, yeah, it did maybe make the whole tissue seem a little stronger. If you focus on looking for things related to a tale that may be made up out of whole cloth, you might indeed miss the real story. But we're better than that. ;)

Thank you Dea..
I would like as much as poss by 26th Oct as I am off over the water to Ireland to visit her then and would like to take it with me.
She does not have a computer at all,and I dont do laptops as I find them aggravating, so I shall be getting withdrawal symptoms by the time I return the following week I suspect!

Got a slight prob with her maternal side also but thats another story!

Well, I didnt see any 'offence meant' when I read it - I am sure she will read it in the same way!

I will go and see if I can find any more!

Dea x