Travellers - The Elusive Mary Matilda

My 2x Great-Grandmother is currently my biggest brick wall in the research of my family history.

Before starting my research I had a few limited bits of information about her, gained from family members:

• Her name, Mary Matilda. This was mostly known to me as my grandmother (her grand-daughter) was named after her.
• She died sometime in the 1930s. My Gran could remember visiting her as a small child so I could work out from her year of birth an approximate year of death for Mary Matilda.
• My Gran also remembered Mary Matilda to be "bed-bound" when she visited and had a vague recollection that she may have lived in a caravan. Supposedly, Mary Matilda had "broken her back when falling from a horse" and was a "bare-back horse rider in the circus".

So far I have found her in the 1911 and 1901 census as Mary Matilda HUDONS (married to Thomas HUDSON). Her death certificate confirms her death in 1933.

I have also found her marriage certificate and have the birth certificates of two of her children. These all give her maiden name as LEWIS and the marriage certificate names her father as Matthew WARD (deceased). 

Prior to the marriage in 1897 I have so far been unable to trace Mary Matilda. Both the 1911 and 1901 census gives her place of birth as Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire but I haven't been able to find a birth for a Mary Matilda LEWIS or Mary Matilda WARD (also having tried using each of the names Mary and Matilda separately) in the area. I have also tried searching for her in Staffordshire and Derbyshire where she later lived. Neither can I find her on the census for 1891 or 1881 in any of these areas. I have also I looked for her on the 1871 census although I believe her to have been born after this (her age on the later censuses and marriage certificate give her birth as either 1873 or 1877).

Who's the Daddy? - Joseph Elton-Walters

I had always been interested in where the double-barrelled name of this line of the family had come from. I had assumed that somewhere along the line an ELTON had married a WALTERS and they had joined the names for whatever reason. However,  when I found my great-grandfather's parents with just the name of WALTERS I was intrigued. Fortunately, the census gave some clues.

On the 1881 census, the family had a lodger, Charles ELTON, living with them. To start with I thought that maybe he was in fact a relative of some kind. As Joseph's name on his birth certificate is "Joseph Edward Elton Walters" I considered that he may have received the "Elton" part of his name from another branch of the family I hadn't yet found. However, it became clearer when I discovered that Joe wasn't the only one of the family with this middle name, three of his ten siblings also had the inclusion. This along with Joseph changing his name at some point before his marriage led me to believe that Charles ELTON was his biological father.

On receiving a copy of Joseph's birth certificate, this theory was scuppered slightly as the father is named as John Charles WALTERS. Obviously this points to the father being John, yet I was still convinced that it's Charles. While it is possible that John's middle name is in fact Charles, it seems more likely to me that it is an indication of the real father and that John's name was used for appearances sake. Also, the father's occupation matches Charles rather than John. John wasn't living with the family in 1881 (although may have been working away at sea) and by 1891 Joseph's mother, Lucy is listed as widowed. As yet, I haven't determined whether John is actually deceased at this point.

The next step was to order Joseph's marriage certificate in the hope that he had given Charles as his father, considering that he is now using the surname of ELTON-WALTERS. On receiving the certificate, I was confused as while the father's name clearly stated the surname to be ELTON-WALTERS, the first name clearly wasn't Charles or John. It took me a moment to decipher the name to be "Mark" which initially didn't make sense until I remembered the 1891 census for the family. Neither John nor Charles was living with the family but there was another lodger, Mark SHAW. I also recalled that as Joseph's four younger siblings had the middle name of "Shaw", Mark was the most likely father of these children. Mark was with the family until at least 1901 (census) - it seems that this is the man Joseph grew up with as a father figure.

More about Joseph ELTON-WALTERS

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.

More about Thomas Hudson

What I Already Know - The Hudson/Bostock Line

As far as the BOSTOCKS go (my grandmother's maternal line) it so far seems fairly straight forward. They were mostly miners and lived in the same area of Derbyshire for at least four generations before my Gran. I have been told that one of my 2x Great-Grandmothers (I haven't yet worked out which) in this line was very religious of the Salvation Army persuasion  but otherwise they seem fairly run of the mill.

Then we come to the HUDSONs (my grandmother's paternal line). Family stories dictate gypsy/traveller heritage but while this sounded exciting, I was weary that it could just be fabrication. I had a fair bit of information on my great-grandfather (although there was a mystery as to whether he and my great-grandmother were actually married - more on this in a later post) but then I got stuck when it came to his parents as there didn't seem to be any record of them before they got married. Was this because they really were travellers and therefore hard to track down? Or was it some other reason?

I'm going to post about how this mystery was solved (well, half-solved at the moment as I've found Thomas, my 2x great-grandfather) but evidence is certainly pointing strongly towards the family legend being true and much closer in generations than I thought. I mostly assumed it would be 3 or 4x great-grandparents at least but it turns out that my great-grandfather was essentially a traveller as were the generations before him.

What I Already Know - The Dunning/Tatlow Line

This has so far been the easiest line to trace in my family. Although I haven't gone in to much detail about each person in my research I have got back to ancestors born in the 1700s without too many problems. Hopefully this will continue now I've got to the pre-registration years.

However, I've largely been concentrating on the nearer ancestors. With all of the First World War things going on at the moment, it seemed like a good time to find out about my great-grandfather, William Henry DUNNING, and  my 2x Great-Grandfather Archibald Joseph TATLOW who both fought in the war. As yet I've not had much luck finding war records for William although there's apparently a letter advising his family that he had been taken prisoner which I need to track down within the family. I do have the pension records for Archibald though.

What I Already Know - The Elton-Walters/Wetherick Line

Again, I knew little about this line of my family. My Nan, Marcelle, died when I was five-years-old. I can vaguely remember her but as I only saw her a few times a year, the memories are limited. I knew that she originally came from the Isle of Wight. I also knew that one of her brothers had lived in Brading as I had been there to visit once when I was a child.

Again, I assumed the unusual surname would help here but it actually turned out to be a hindrance. I could easily find my Nan and her siblings as well as a death for their father, Joseph Edward ELTON-WALTERS, but Grandpa Joe wasn't so easy to find after that. I eventually managed to find him under Joseph Walters, which made me wonder where the double-barreled name came from, especially when I found his mother's maiden name wasn't ELTON. Despite having found the census records for the family it took a while to figure out. I will post more on this and how I solved it another time as it was quite complicated but essentially it came down to Joseph's parents not being married. He obviously at some point decided to use both surnames.

How Joseph ended up with his wife, Lucy WETHERICK, who was from the Isle of Wight when he grew up in Lancashire is the next thing I'd like to try to find out.

What I Already Know - The Gorringe/Gearing Line

My Grandad, Albert James GORRINGE, died before I was born so I knew little about him. My knowledge was pretty much that he was known as Bert and that he was a bus driver form Brighton. I also have a few photos of him including one in army uniform, which I believe must be from World War Two, as well as his death certificate.

I haven't yet done a lot of research on this line of my family and was hoping that the unusual surname would help.

The lesson learnt so far from this is to not rely on family rumors and stories. I was led to believe that there was a tradition of using the initials AJ for first and middle names. However, this has proved to not be the case, at least not in the direct line. This threw me off a little bit as I was searching for Bert's father to also be Albert James but it turns out he was called Albert Stephen. Fortunately, this wasn't too hard to work out. Once I had the maiden name for Bert's mother (verified with his siblings' birth records) it was simple enough to find the marriage for Albert Stephen GORRINGE and Louisa GEARING. Louisa was know by the family as Loulou and I have since found a photograph of her with her grandchildren. Beyond this I only have names for the next few generations with no further details as yet.