Help with a brickwall

Question

On 11 Jun 2021 Paul Catharell wrote on Catharell-1:

i actually joined wikitree as a sort of desperate act (no disrespect!) as i've hit a wall with my research on both ancestry and myheritage. One of my ancestros doesn't appear to be who he was supposed to be which pretty much means that from 1863 ish, we should have had a different family name. It all hinges on finding one marriage certificate from that time. I'm beginning to suspect that the pair in question didn't actually marry and i'll never find it. So i saw your site and it looked interesting. Any help/advice would be much appreciated. thanks, paul

Answer 1

hi jackie (and dina)...the story in brief is that my great great grandfather Henry Catherall (b.Liverpool 1843, d. Liverpool 1876) married a lady called Margaret, maiden name unknown sometime between 1862 - 1869.  In trying to research margaret I got on the trail of a Margaret Fox, b. 1838, Liverpool who seemed to fit the bill.  This margaret was also married in 1855 to a Robert Melling (b. 1829, Sefton, outside Liverpool).  They had a son, Thomas James b. 1863 whose birth details I have and who is clearly Thomas James Melling.  When i started chasing the Catharell family tree i relied heavily on other trees who all listed margaret fox, b. 1863 married to henry catherall and having a son thomas james b. 1863.  I havent been able to find either herny & margarets wedding cert to confirm margaret's maiden name, or anythng showing the birth of thomas to anyone other than robert & Margaret melling.  The thomas james i have on the catherall tree married elizabeth forshaw (b. 1865 ish, Lathom Lancs)..on the 1891 census a thomas melling appears married to an elizabeth forshaw, b. 1865, Lathom with kids and dates...on the 1911 census thomas is there as catharell, married to elizabeth forshaw, born 1865, lathom with the same kids.  This has to be the same Thomas which means that since 1863 we've been melling's not catharells!...i have been on ancestry, myheritage, findmypast and even to the archives at central library in liverpool and drawn a blank...i'm am trying an educated guess at where they might have married to try and get my hands on that certificate to get margaret's maiden name.  If it says Fox then i'll be ok and assume by coincidence that there's another story ive missed...but if, as i think it will, say melling, then my history suddenly changes..brickwall sums it up...help!

Comments

It was worth positing.  (I've recently documented a guy who changed his name after being a witness in a criminal trial, so anything is possible.)

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absolutely agree... i've done nothing for 5 days but search for this marriage certificate...tried bascially everything so i'll listen to any ideas from anyone....there's a real story here because henry died in 1976 at 33...i have his death record and his last abode is "Dead House, Princes Dock" Liverpool, which is where they kept bodies they'd fished out of the Mersey until claimed....accident or suicide...i hope to learn more about him but if i find this certificate and margaret is a melling then i'm no longer his blood relation...

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that should be 1876

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Finding this -- 

Name: Henry Catherall; Date of Trial: 16 Aug 1876; Location of Trial: Lancashire; Sentence: 18 months Imprisonment, 4 years police supervision; Crime: Larceny before convicted of felony

Helped me to wonder about the possibility of a name change.

I'll keep looking.

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thank you melanie, and for all your help....i've seen this document also but as it's august and he died in may i'd written it off...but once again thanks

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But, you see, you are working from knowledge.  I am working blind. So it is inevitable I will cover things you already know.  

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yes i know melanie...i don't know if my language is coming across as ungrateful but it's certainly isn't meant to be...i'm very appreciative of your help which is fantastic given you don't know me...

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Not at all seeming ungrateful, so don't worry about that.  It can be comforting to see that others have thought along the same pathways, confirming some things, and excluding others.  (I am always grateful when someone sees something I somehow missed!)

This is what is grate about Wikitree - - we all help each other, without necessarily knowing more than what the words on the screen convey. 

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it's also good to have someone to talk to as opposed to sitting in the attic at midnight trying to decipher the 1841 census and using google latin translations

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I'm usually trying to decipher incredibly unreadable handwriting, and/or German.   (I only speak and read English, other than a few words here and there I have picked up over the last 5-decades-plus.)

I keep saying "this is way out of my comfort zone", then I dive right in anyway!  

(As an aside, my great, great grands came from Lancs.)

Answer 2

I'm not sure what you need help with as you seem to have figured out everything correctly yourself. I realize you already know all this but just my reading of the data...

Thomas James Melling was born in 1863 in Liverpool to Margaret Melling nee Fox.

	MELLING, THOMAS  JAMES	FOX
	GRO Reference: 1863  D Quarter in LIVERPOOL  Volume 08B  Page 176

Margaret Fox married Robert Melling in 1955 but unusually she is missing from his 1861 census entry in Sefton. It also seemed strange that their first child would be after 8 years of marriage so I searched for any other suitable children. There was a James Richardson Melling born Q3 1860 died Q4 1860 mother's maiden name Fox who might have been theirs. Perhaps this contributed to their relationship breaking up.

In any case, by 1871 Margaret was living with the significantly younger Henry Catherall as his wife. You can stop looking for the marriage record because it doesn't exist. It's quite possible that Robert was still alive as I couldn't find a suitable death for him but I couldn't definitely find him in the 1871 census either. They have a young child, also Henry, whose birth was registered with a mother's maiden name of Fox.

CATTRALL, HENRY	FOX
GRO Reference: 1869  D Quarter in WEST DERBY AND TOXTETH PARK  Volume 08B  Page 353

It seems safe to assume that Henry was the father of young Henry and their subsequent children John George and Jane. Somewhat inconsistently, John George is registered with a mother's maiden name of Melling and I can't reliably locate Jane's birth registration.

CATHARLL, JOHN  GEORGE	MELLING
GRO Reference: 1871  S Quarter in WEST DERBY AND TOXTETH PARK  Volume 08B  Page 461

Unfortunately Henry died in 1876, as you know, and in 1881 Margaret is living with her four children as a widow with the surname Caterall. The 1891 census has Thomas as the head of his own household and the bizarre change of surname to "Malling" - presumably a mistake for Melling.

This is odd because he married under the surname Catherall and the birth registrations of his children both before and after 1891 used that surname. We can only speculate how and why this happened but it seems to rule out the possibility that Henry was his father. Thomas must have known his "real" surname was Melling for this to happen.

Comments

matthew, thank you so much for taking the time on this...you have uncovered a new player too...i missed John Richardson Melling b. 1860, d. 1860..this is definitely a child of Robert Melling and Margaret Fox as Margaret's fathers name is John Richardson Fox.  Robert Melling was indeed alive in 1871 as I have two events on record...one is he spent some time in prison that year...and two is that he married a lady called Mary McGee...to add to the confusion he listed himself as a "widower" which he most certainly wasn't.  My last references to him are 1884 where he goes to prison for 9 months.  Both Margaret and her son Thomas seem to have interchanged their names throughout causing much confusion but i think we've all got it sorted now.  What it has confirmed is that I have a new family name of Melling and the Catharell's, before and after Thomas James was born in 1863, become bit players.  Something i'll sit and ponder with a large glass of port later today.  Once more thanks.

Answer 3

jackie, thanks for your email....and yes, i think my situation has been resolved via yourself and melanie and matthew....bit of a shocker to have my bloodline change but the only thing to do with the truth is embrace it...i can now go on and start investigating my proper ancestors...game on,....thanks again

Comments

Do consider upgrading your membership and making Wikitree a place to have the most accurate location for your tree. You've worked out that Wikitree has lots of people prepared to help, but it is also a great location to be contacted regularly by cousins. I've lost count how many new cousins I've been in contact with, but at one stage I was probably averaging one every month. There are lots of other benefits as well, but most importantly, it is always free. I have had trees elsewhere, and lost them, one because payments stopped. There are also lots of other tools available here.