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.

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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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