Travellers - Finding Thomas Hudson

The first stumbling block I came to when tracing my traveller/gypsy line was with 2x great-grandparents, Thomas and Mary Matilda HUDSON. I found them easily enough in the 1901 census and 1911 census so I had an idea of birth date and place. I also found record of their marriage but was unable to trace either of them before this. I have yet to get any further with Mary but I'm convinced that I have tracked down Thomas.

Step one was obviously to send for the marriage certificate. To start with, the information on here confused matters further rather than helping. Thomas's father was recorded as William JOHNSON, not HUDSON as expected.  At the time I hadn't read up much on travellers and gypsies so wasn't aware that name changes were common. So, I searched for 'William Johnson' and came up with a billion possibilities. Then I added his occupation of 'chimney sweep'. This brought up one likely candidate on the relevant census records. He was listed with a son Thomas but with the surname Johnson. Stupidly, I disregarded this as 'my' Thomas because of the surname being incorrect. I did keep a note of it though, in case William was still the father I was looking for and I started to wonder the likelihood of him having two sons called Thomas with different mothers (clutching at straws).

I started reading more widely around the subject and came across lots of tips for searching for travellers, including that changing names was common. Eventually I returned to investigate the William Johnson who I'd found. Had I done this earlier, I'd have probably solved the mystery much sooner. One of the first things I looked for was a marriage between William and his wife, Rachel. Low and behold, William JOHNSON, chimney sweep, married Rachel HUDSON in 1872 (the same year Thomas was born) in Yoxall, Staffordshire. I was then able to find the family (parents, William and Rachel, sons William, Thomas and Nathan/Nathaniel) in the 1871, 1881 and 1891 census. Not conclusive evidence but at least a good possibility that Thomas decided at some point to use his mother's maiden name as his surname. I went on to research further back into William and Rachel's families, finding lots of sweeps, hawkers and other occupations that would suggest travellers/gypsies. At this point I was convinced I had the right people but didn't quite have the 'proof' so I continued searching.

The next piece of information I found was for William in the 1901 census in Cheadle Workhouse. I haven't had chance to look in to that in more detail but it did lead to questions such as what had happened to Rachel and the rest of the family. I already knew that Thomas was married and assumed Rachel had died (I still need to find this though) so I looked for the other two sons (Thomas' brothers). I searched for Nathan first, assuming his name was less common than William. Nothing came up for Nathaniel or Nathan JOHNSON so I tentatively typed in HUDSON for the surname. Luck must have been on my side because not only did I find Nathan but he was living with his brother William and family (wife and a number of children). Birth dates and places matched as did Nathan's occupation of chimney sweep.

Now I just have to work out why, at some point between 1891 and 1901, the three brothers all decided to use their mother's surname. Combined with their father being in the workhouse in 1901, in makes me wonder if there was some kind of falling out between them.

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