Review Everything
My gt grandfather was born in Warminster Workhouse, his mother was unmarried and was born in Fisherton Delamere and living there in 1841, so she would have been expected to have her settlement as this parish, which would be part of the area covered by the Wilton Workhouse.
However we do not find her in Wiltshire in the 1851 census. She has moved to Sherborne, Dorset and is employed as a Silk Winder.
It is possible that before her son was born she had moved to Warminster for work as this town also had Silk Mills.
So who was his father?
DNA matches have proven to be helpful in confirming the research discovered in the records available.
I attended a zoom talk on 29th October and one of the tips was to organise your matches into groups by looking at shared matches.
I have 2 unknown fathers at 2xgt grandparent level in the maternal side of my tree. Once I had assigned those I had confirmed as descedants of known relatives I was left with a number of unkowns which I grouped together.
On 30th October I started looking at how some of them might be connected. I had a number of them who had the surname Jeffery or a variant in their tree.
Were they connected? Could this be my missing link?
One in particular stood out.
The Samuel Jeffery in this tree was living at Middle Mills Sherborne, Dorset in 1851 he was a widower and a Carpenter.
I did some investigating and added more sources to the Family Search tree before moving to add anything to Ancestry.
During this research I came across marriage banns in July and August 1854.
Having made this final discovery I added Samuel as a likely father.
I now have more DNA matches that are linked to this family.
William was not the son of Harriett Hunt his mother had died before he appeared on the census records.
William Burden Jeffery's birth was registered in the Oct-Nov-Dec quarter of 1848 in the Sherborne district.<ref>
'''Birth Registration''':
"England & Wales General Register Office", database<br/>
[https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/indexes_search.asp?index=EW_Birth&Year=1848&Range=0&Surname=JEFFERY&MothersSurname=BURDEN&Forename1=WILLIAM&Forename2=BURDEN&Gender=M&Quarter=D&District=SHERBORNE&Volume=08&Page=91 GRO Online Indexes - Birth] (accessed 4 November 2024)<br/>
Jeffery, William Burden (Mother's maiden name: Burden).<br/>
''GRO Reference:'' 1848 Oct-Nov-Dec in [https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/sherborne.html Sherborne] Volume 08 Page 91.
</ref>
This is the narrative and citation I shall use when I add him to WikiTree.
William had a brother Frederic who is in a tree of someone who is a match and he has the correct mother,
his descendants are showing up as matches.
I have been slowly adding to this family but being careful to ensure I have the correct family.
One of the key things here was deciding whether it was likely that Samuel and Martha had met. The fact that they were working in the same industry, in the same town, at the same time, was crucial in taking that final step.