General Chat

I have finally found my great-grandmother on my mother's side, AND put her to rest.

She left my great grandfather some time between the 1891 and 1901 censuses, taking their youngest surviving child with her.

Help from others found her living as a housekeeper for a Theatre Manager in her home town in 1901, and she was still with him in Salford in 1911. The child was present on both occasions. She was using her "nickname" Annie instead of Hannah

In 1921, the Theatre Manager is in Salford but living alone.

This afternoon, I found Annie in the Oldham Workhouse on the 1921. I then found a death on GRO in 1922, right age right place.

Luckily, the Oldham Cemeteries are on Family Search, and they've been indexed (whoopee!!). The death is her.

But the shocker to me was that her place of residence was my grandparents' house .................... so she was apparently back living with her son.

I've ordered a PDF of the death certificate.


My mother never talked about her grandparents, even though her maternal grandfather was living with them in both 1901 and 1911, and now her paternal grandmother has been found there. Mum was still living at home in 1922.


The daughter Ethel is still missing ................... but there are thousands of girls called Ethel with the same surname, born about the same time, so she's going to be a needle in the haystack!

Brilliant news Sylvs. I know you have been looking for her for a long, long time. Well done you!!

Fab news, Sylvia. I am pleased for you.

I am struggling with two sidekicks of my direct ancestors and every now and then I’ll do another search but to no avail, so far.

One was a naughty girl and the other was with my great-grandparents in 1911 but I can find no marriage or death that would fit her after that so I’ll take a look in the 1921 census when I can do so.

Both were in my Dad’s side.

There are a couple of sidekicks down Mum’s line but as they were seafarers I have given up as they could well have drowned - or even jumped ship and laid low!

I am lucky, however, to have lots of information in the direct lines of both of my parents.

Sylvia, your success has given me the impetus to try again. :-)

That is good news for you Sylvia.
The death of one of my great grandmothers caused me problems for years, mainly because of wrong information from my mother. I even ordered the wrong death certificate for her. It was good when I finally tracked her down

Well done. News like this gives us all much needed encouragement to keep on searching and we never know what we are going to find.

While following down the line of a sister (born 1692) of a direct ancestor, I discovered that one of her grandaughters had married back into the main branch of the original family. The Will of the grandaughter's husband (1799) named my gt gt gt grandmother as a widow and this helped find her death and confirmed the location my branch of the family.

Thanks for sharing your good work.

Thank you all.

Yes, I felt really pleased yesterday!

Linda ................ I've also got a wrong death certificate for her, but I did only get the PDF so didn't even bother downloading it!

Cynthia ............ you're right, I have been after her for about 15 years. I spent years looking for her death in the 1890s without any success.

Now, I'm going to have to see if the Oldham Workhouse records are online yet to see how long she was a patient there.


Interestingly, the Oldham Workhouse, like so many, later became the Oldham General Hospital, and I had my appendix out in there in 1959, and l also later had another minor op there in 1966 :-0

The wards were still the long many bedded wards from the workhouse days. :-D

Well done, Sylvia!

The brother of my GG grandad (who, in 1851 joined the Metropolitan police force) was in Aylesbury prison in the 1851 Census, for derailing a train at Cheddington - the same place as the 'Great Train Robbery' of 1963 - but was transferred to Peckham Asylum. The Government paid for Prison inmates, the local Parish paid for Asylum inmates - so a lot of prisoners not deemed a danger to society were put in Asylums..

He escaped once, but was recaptured, The second time he escaped, after 3 months, when they couldn't find him, they declared him 'free', as he'd only been sentenced to 2 years, and that 2 years was up! This was all in documents found on FMP.
It took me years to find him again - he'd joined the army, married, and had an impeccable army record. :-D

So I got the pdf of her death certificate last week.

It was my gt grandmother, she died in the workhouse infirmary, though only the street address was given.

Cause of death was Cerebral Softening, which I believe could be caused by syphilis.

The death was reported by one of her daughters, Sarah, and her place of residence was put down as Sarah's .............. though it was my grandfather's address that is shown in the Burial Register.

The Workhouse records do not appear to be online, though they could be on microfiches in Salt Lake City, according to the Family Search site.

Unfortunately we have never had a Family Search place here where you could look at microfiches ................ it is/was only a very small place.