Week 4 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Invite to Dinner

Rather than discuss who I would invite to dinner I have decided to discuss a meal our family had to celebrate my grandparents Golden Wedding Anniversary as it allows me to share some of the photographs and documents I have as a reminder.

Albert E. V. Buckle, Gwendoline A. Buckle nee Wiltshire and Betty Owens nee Buckle

Some of their guests

The Menu

I am sure that some of my cousins will remember this family occasion and I am fortunate to have in my possession the cards that my grandparents received from friends and family some of them can be seen in this photograph below.

Golden Wedding Cards and Flowers

This side of my family would often get together at Christmas and my aunt Phyl, who left me these photographs, the menu and cards would love to get the family together.

Each Christmas we would go to my grandparents' house.  

My aunt Phyl, who was the younger of their two daughters, would often have family parties at her own bungalow, where she would put on a lavish spread. 

This menu is fairly typical of the time period. But I am sure would be considered quite bland when compared to restaurant menus we would expect if we were celebrating today.

A search for the venue today brings up this website. So all that remains are photographs and our fragile memories.

Some of my cousins are aware of the reason I choose this particular occasion to discuss on my blog. 

Take a look at the marriage certificate for my grandparents.

Before you say there must be a transcription error I also have the index entries.

So we celebrated a year early. Who cares!. We had a chance of a family get-together, which included some of my family from the United States, and my grandparents did have more than 50 years together. My grandmother did not die until 1979.

Week 3 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Longevity

Both of the photographs above were taken in the 1920s, or possibly later for the first one, as the young girl in the photograph was born in 1924. She is his great grandaughter, Betty Buckle.

Henry WITT,¹ the son of Isaac WITT (1800?-1894) and Mary Ann ELDRIDGE (1812?-1893), was born on 1 April 1847 in Minstead, Hampshire, England.¹

He married Selina GRANT on 2 December 1869 in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, England when he was aged 22 and she was 24.²

When the birth of his daughter Elizabeth Ann was registered on 26 November 1870, he was a Garden Labourer living in Minstead, Hampshire, England.³

He witnessed the marriage in Southampton on 31 July 1893 of Joseph Buckle and Elizabeth Ann Witt.⁴

He died of Senile Arteriosclerosis on 10 October 1946 in Southampton.⁵

On each census from 1871, his occupation was shown as a gardener. He started out as a labourer on the 1861 census but appears to have spent some time at school as in 1851 he was shown as a scholar. I will discuss more in a post later this month.

He is buried in Southampton Old Cemetery a map of the cemetery can be found here. I have seen the headstone but need to visit again to take a photograph. Several years ago, when I first looked at this, I discovered that for this cemetery, he was the person to reach the greatest age at burial. 
Reaching the age of 99 is still not that common but he was not the only one of his family to reach a good age. His father died at the age of 93 and his grandfather David Witt was 79 when he died in 1843.
He must have experienced much during his life living through both World Wars. The area of Southampton where he lived experienced a number of air raids in the years just prior to his death.

1. General Register Office, England, certified copy of an entry in the certified copy of a Register of Births, New Forest Registration District, 12 May 1847, Henry Witt born 1 April 1847, Minstead, County of Southampton, England, New Forest Registration district, Volume 8, Page 191; photocopy certificate, 10 April 2004, General Register Office, Southport, England.
2. New Forest Registration District Register Office, Hampshire,England [now part of Hampshire], certified copy of an entry of Marriage in a register in the custody of New Forest Registration District Registrar, 2 December 1869, Henry Witt & Selina Grant, Marriage in Lyndhurst Parish, County of Southampton, England, entry no. 245; handwritten certificate, 12 March 2003, Hampshire Record Office, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
3. New Forest Registration District Register Office, Hampshire, England [now part of Hampshire], certified copy of an entry of Birth in a register in the custody of New Forest Registration District Registrar, 26 November 1870, Elizabeth Ann Witt born 12 November 1870, Minstead, Hants, England, entry no. 340; handwritten certificate, 12 March 2003, Hampshire Record Office, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
4. The Register Office, Southampton, certified copy of an entry of Marriage in a register in the custody of Southampton Registration District Registrar, 31 July 1892, Joseph Buckle & Elizabeth Ann Witt, Marriage at St  Barnabas Church, Southampton, County of Southampton, England, entry no. 1; handwritten certificate, 28 February 2003, Southampton, Hampshire, England.
5. General Register Office, England, certified copy of an entry in the certified copy of a Register of Deaths, Southampton Registration District, 10 October 1946, Henry Witt, Minstead, Southampton, England,  Southampton Registration district, Vol. 6b, P. 516; photocopy certificate, 11 March 2010, General Register Office, Southport, England.

Footnote: Hants is an abbreviation used for Hampshire. 

Due to naming changes what was Southampton county is now Hampshire.

Week 2 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Favourite Photograph

Trying to choose a favourite photograph is not an easy task and I have decided on this one because it was the first one to spring to mind when I read the challenge.

This is possibly the only colour photograph I have of my father and me. 

It was probably taken before I started school. I would take a guess at 1963 or 4 but possibly earlier. 

I have no idea where it was taken but probably in Southampton, Hampshire, England in the garden of my grandparent(s). We had no garden as we lived in a flat at this time.

I do not remember my father having anything but grey, balding hair which men of his generation, often, tried to, unsuccessfully, disguise by what was known as a "comb -over". I believe that as a child he was actually blond although black and white photographs of the time do not show this.

Dad (on the left) with his younger brother

I wonder if this photograph of my father was taken on his first day at school, 21st April 1936, according to the school admission book.

Photograph of page from the School Admission Register for West End school taken by Hilary Gadsby 

at West End Local History Society Museum ,West End, Hampshire, England on 19 May 2007 

Getting closer to the truth - Dealing with conflicts

This morning I saw a post that another Geneablogger wrote about how much evidence is required to prove a genealogical fact. She used as her example an English birth.

I have discussed a similar case in a blogpost last year.

In this post I will be following on from my previous post with results from my research trip earlier this year.

At the end of March I travelled to Hampshire, England for a research trip, genealogy conference and catch up with family.

Whilst I was unable to find some of the records that may have furthered my research I did find some new publications that have assisted in clarifying that my conclusions may be correct or require modification.

Whilst perusing the shelves in Hampshire Record Office I came across 3 books published in 2015. Since it has been several years since my last visit these were new to me. Had I looked in the online catalogue I would have found them they are TRA286/18-20. 

Whilst only being transcripts they are at the present time the best that is available. In fact they are to some extent better than just having the original records for most researchers. 

I say this for 2 reasons 

1. Many of the originals were written in latin
2. The records have been supplemented by reference to other records which may not be readily available e.g records from the undertakers regularly used by catholics in Southampton.

I would also note that there are numerous pages given over to the history of catholism in Southampton at the beginning of at least one of these books. They have been written by someone with a great knowledge of these records and it must have taken a considerable time and effort to collate the contents of these books.

In my earlier post I included this image of a letter from the office of the parish priest of St Joseph's Church Southampton.

I transcribed the baptism records from TRA286/20, relevant to my research, into a Google sheet and reviewing the 2 shows some inconsistencies and demonstrates the danger of relying upon transcriptions alone.

I have discovered more from these records but will discuss these in future post(s).

In conclusion it appears that my previous assumption that my ancestor may have lied about the date of birth is false and it may be that the person in the priest's office transcribed the dates incorrectly when writing to my cousin.