Dang, just blew another hole in my tree!

Question

Filling in some data on one of my 4x great-grandmothers today, and it became obvious that her mother's husband couldn't have been her father. The child was born in 1793 and they married in 1803, and the husband needed permission from his mother to marry because he was only 20 at the time.

I'm not the profile manager but I fixed it as best I could and emailed the PM. He'll need to change her surname at birth. This is a bit of a shame because the PM is one of the few good clean DNA matches I have to test against when my results come back. At least we'll have the maternal match anyhow.

Comments

Are you certain of her birth year?  According to what Heather Jenkinson posted on the profile, she would have been 17 years old when churched.

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edited to fix a typo

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Are you positive that Christopher Howlett's Parents are Robert and Susan? There's a Robert and Elizabeth with a Christopher born 1830 ?

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Hi Melanie,

She was born in 1793 and married in 1830. That makes her 37 which is fairly late to be married and explains why there are only two children.

I'm certain that's the correct DOB, it was calculated from her obituary, which also mentions the correct person as her husband.

We may, however, have the wrong parents.

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Heather: That one doesn't actually matter for now. The problem is who Susan's parents are. Although if Christopher's parents are Robert and Elizabeth then Susan becomes someone else's problem I guess.

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Welp .. I wish all the luck you can handle, 'cause I think you might need it on this one.  :)

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(I've a bit of detective work of my own to work on .. self "inflicted" because the profiles aren't under my direct care, but as they are a part of our shared tree I care about them being as accurate as possible .. and I think I have a handle on an answer.  Or, at least, I hope I do .. hence the detective work (right now it's trawling through Trove).)

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I commented to someone in my family that before starting genealogy it's best to read all of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I really think I need a good night's sleep, or maybe some of that cocaine Sherlock used. :)

Night!

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I added both census details for Elizabeth wife and Susan wife I've put a comment detail as you see fit! It was too hard to explain on here but take a look at Christopher's Fathers profile I put it on there

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Heather, your assistance has been immeasurable. Many thanks indeed.

Answer 1

Just added 1851 Census Details to Thomas for you

Comments

Cheers!

Ooh, I see we have a few furphies amongst the children too. That will help a lot.

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furphies?

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Aussie slang for a tall tale (an unlikely story) that is claimed to be factual.  We're rather good at that. 

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 Live and learn; live long enough, learn something new

Answer 2

This does not fix your problem but flicking through parish register baptisms for Gooderstone, I found a Mary Ann, base born daughter of Susan Gutheredge, baptised June 21 1829. Gutheredge is the spelling of her surname on the marriage of 1830.

What I also noticed was another marriage, dated 20 Mar 1826, of Robert Howlett and Susan Gutteridge in Gooderstone. The 1830 marriage entry of Robert Howlett and Susan Gutheredge has a date of 15th April 1830 and they were both recorded as single, so 20 Mar 1826 would either have to have been a really bad transcription error (unlikely), or the first marriage was deemed not legal, or it was two different people with the same/similar names.

Comments

The 1826 entry is the first banns entry. It was formalized in 1830. See the original 1826 document here

It shows the entries crossed out and the dates in 1830 where it was republished.

Answer 3

Possibly another spanner

I'm not sure why you have excluded the 1810 baptism of Susan Gutheridge .I've just been looking at the burial register. There is a sad sequence of deaths which suggests that the death in 1832 was the mother of Elizabeth  bapt July 1831

1832

Feb 22 Susan Howlett, age 22

May 4 Sarah Ann Gutheridge age 14

May 10 Elizabeth Howlett infant

May 17 William Gutheridge age 9

May 25 Frances Gutheridge age 27

June 1 Mary Gutheridge age 17.

Sarah Ann, William, and Mary were (from the baptism register) all children of Thomas and Ann Guthridge as was Susan Guthridge bapt 1810.

A possible interpretation is that Susan Howlett (nee Gutheridge ) died in Feb leaving a young daughter Elizabeth. She was cared for within the family. Sadly some sort of infectious disease killed 4 members of the family within a month together with the infant Elizabeth.

(I looked at the originals on Ancestry, there are however good transcripts on Free Reg.)

Edit

Of course this doesn't mean that Robert couldn't have married again and had a son called Christopher... however so far, the Christopher I have found is the one mentioned in another post; son of Robert and Elizabeth in  Bawburgh 25 Dec 1830

Comments

I followed up the obituary that you used to calculate the date of birth for Susan Howlett (I have access to British Newspaper Archives)

She died on 1st March not Jan as in the index.  The notice from the Norfolk Chronicle 6th March 1869 reads

On the 1st., inst at North Walsham in her 76th year, Susan relict of the late Mr Robert Howlett carpenter and builder

This I think is the same lady living at Free School Road,  North Walsham in 1861,

Susana Howlett, head widow, 66 proprietor of houses, born Knapton Norfolk.

Staying with her is an Elizabeth Cornish also from Knapton.Next door is a Robinson Cornish and family. He was a master carpenter employing 5 men and born in Knapton.

There is a marriage of a  Susan Cornish, spinster of this parish to Robert Howlett, widower of this parish at Knapton on the 6th of Nov 1823 at Knapton. (Elizabeth Cornish was one of the witnesses)

 Robert and Susannah Howlett  are to be found on the 1841 census in Free School Road, aged 45  and 40 (supposed to be rounded down to nearest 5 years so he could be nearly 50, she nearly 45, if accurate!) He was a carpenter.

In 1851 Robert  60 and Susannah, 56 are still at Free School Lane, North Walsham. He gave his birthplace as Pulham, he was a master carpenter employing 2 men.

Basically, this couple don't appear to be the couple from Gooderstone.

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Oh, hell. Thanks for that. I think I'm going to need a deerstalker hat.

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Helen, I've added all those death dates and the census information now makes perfect sense. I concur, it does look as if Christopher is the son of Robert and Elizabeth. Susan died too soon after her marriage to have been his mother.

Answer 4

Thanks for all the help finding data for this profile. The Profile Manager has now stepped in and fixed it, although it needs a bit more work as far as I can see.

Comments

I spent almost the whole day on this one. There are at least six Robert Hewitt's in Norfolk born around the same time. Two of them were married to a Susan and the rest seem to have married an Elizabeth.

My man, the only one with a documented son called Christopher, is the butcher from Bawburgh, just up the street from the King's Head.

It's great to finally have a family that I can recognise. Now all I need to do is transfer the data across from FamilySearch, which shouldn't take long.

Whew.