Grandmothers family in The AnswerBank: History

on cases like this you need to look at the siblings, did your grandmother have any brothers or sisters? Your grandmother's birth certificate will give both her parents, you are going back to your great grandfathers birth before finding your grandmothers birth, at least from your post that is what i assume. You have an idea of the birth quarter for your grandmother by working it out from the age at marriage and the age on the census entry.

spudqueen

Yes, try and find your grandmothers birth certificate. When you have that you will have both her parents names. You should then be able to find the family in the census.

Hammond Egg

If you subscribe to ancestry.co.uk, you could put in your grandmother's name and year of birth and her father's first name, and that will help you identify her - though it may give you several possibilities.

Also - who are the witnesses to the marriage? Quite often the witnesses are the married couple's siblings.

oxymoron

Question Author

Thanks everyone but I cant findout if there were brothers or sisters as I dont have a census which I can be sure is her parents. the witnesses on the marriage certificate were her husbands i.e my grandfathers brother and sister and I can trace them but not the maternal side of the family. Any more suggestions gratefully received!!

oxymoron

Question Author

Me again I forgot to say Ido subscribe to Ancestry.uk but only have her birth year from the marriage certificate and cant order birth certificate without date etc.

spudqueen

Yes, get her birth certificate! You already have your grandmothers age on her marriage certificate and her age on the 1881 census. If these tally then you have a good idea of when she was born. You should also have her place of birth from the 1881 census. From this you should be able to trace her birth on the births register. Order the certificate and you then have both her parents names. You should then be able to find the whole family on the 1871 and possibly 1861, possibly even 1851 census.

dot.hawkes

you must have a rough idea where in the country she is likely to be registered, and do you not know when her birthday was? if you do it will narrow your search to various quarters, Q1 is jan to match Q2 april to june Q3 july to sept Q4 oct to dec. Is there not an age on her gravestone or death certificate? can u not find her death registration which should show her birth registration if she died after 1974 (think it changed then). you don't need a birth date to order a certificate, if you find a number of likely birth registrations for her, send off the fee, list the possibilities but add the info on who you need her father to be based on the info you have from the certificate of marriage. the person dealing with your order will only send you the correct one based on your info. negative research is almost as valuable as positive, as you at least know that you have eliminated certain possibilities and so your search narrows.

spudqueen

Yes, get her birth certificate! You already have your grandmothers age on her marriage certificate and her age on the 1881 census. If these tally then you have a good idea of when she was born. You should also have her place of birth from the 1881 census. From this you should be able to trace her birth on the births register. Order the certificate and you then have both her parents names. You should then be able to find the whole family on the 1871 and possibly 1861, possibly even 1851 census.
If you subscribe to ancestry why can't you find her birth on the register? They are in quarters so you may have to look through four quarters for the year you think she was born in. If you then order her birth certificate from the office where her birth was registered they will (usually) check that it has the right father on the certificate before posting it to you if you give them the details.

oxymoron

Question Author

Thanks again everyone, you are all right a birth certificate is the answer.She was born in 1864 and i`ve checked all quarters for 1864 and 1865 without success,so why wouldnt she be on the 1871 census apart from 1881 when she was not living at home and after marriage in 1888 I can`t find her. I would just like to know if she had any siblings. I think she died around 1939. Guess I shall have to try and chase up the area she was born i.e. whistable.

Hammond Egg

As I understand it, individual census enumaerators filled in a card for each address; these cards were collected and copied onto the census returns you see on ancestry; and these are then transcribed by people working for ancestry
to make up the searchable indexes. So there are three stages where a name can be misspelt, and this may apply to first names, or surnames.

If you search the 1871 census, putting in Whitstable under 'civil parish', 1864 as the birth date and female as the gender, you will get a list of just 73 names. At least one of those has a ludicrously wrong first name - Alias - though that is how the name appears on the census image (and she appears in the 1881 census as a servant). Others may have their surnames misspelt. Nonetheless from those 73 names you should see one that nearly enough resembles the name you are looking for.

oxymoron

Question Author

Thanks Hammond Egg you are brilliant,Idid as you said in case the spellings were wrong and whithout any name and hey presto! I got Rosannah Beight , my grandmothers name was Rose Hannah Bright so you can see how names get changed.I now have a census with her brothers and sisters to work on. Many Thanks to you and everyone else for their input.

Hammond Egg

Glad to be a help.

Grandmothers family

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