Mortlock brick wall - any ideas?

[Anstey Nomad]

Next spring we have a long lost relative who found me through the internet, visiting from Australia. She’s actually OH’s rellie on his Dad’s side and the story is that his great grandma’s sister, Julia Mortlock (b1877), had an illegitimate baby that she then passed over to great grandma to be brought up with her family, before there was a formal adoption process. This baby then grew up, married and emigrated to Oz and the rest, as they say, is history.

I’d like to be able to tell this lady more about her direct antecedents, but we have a brick wall.

Maud was born in 1902 or 1903 and is aged 8 in the 1911 census where she appears with the family of John James Manning Medlock and his wife Jeanette (née Mortlock) at Station Street in Foleshill, now part of Coventry but then outside the City boundary. Just to confuse things she is wrongly indexed on Ancestry as ‘Medlock’.

Her place of birth is given as Cambridge. Before I saw this census entry I had checked all the Coventry baptisms for the relevant period and not found her, so it seems entirely credible that she would have been born in Cambridge, close to where the family originally came from and where she still had relatives living at that time.

On the 1911 Census Julia, still unmarried, is in service at Berners Hall, Roding, Ongar, Essex.

I have checked on Ancestry as far as I can for a marriage and/or a death for Julia without finding anything that looks obvious, so as far as I can see at the moment she has just dropped off the face of the earth after 1911.

Maud grew up using the surname of her ‘adopted’ family which was Medlock and when she married John O’Brien Middleton in Coventry in DQ 1922 she used the Medlock name and gave her ‘adopted’ father’s details in the relevant column on the certificate, so no help there.

Their daughter name removed was born in 1923 and in 1927 the family emigrated to Australia. Name removed is still alive but has dementia and is unable to help at all. It’s her daughter that is coming to see us in the Spring.

However, we cannot find a birth registration for Maud in either Mortlock, her mother’s name, or Medlock, her ‘adopted’ name.

All I can think of is that she was actually registered at birth under her father’s name, but no-one here has any idea who her father might have been and no-one in Oz can remember ever having seen Maud’s birth certificate.

Is there any way I can try to find out who Maud’s father was other than going through all the available parish registers for Cambridge for the appropriate years in the hope that one of them might reveal a child called Maud whose mother is named Julia? Would an illegitimate child have been baptized anyway?

Does anyone have any other ideas I could try or is this a hopeless quest?

Thanks for reading this.

AN

[HarrysMum]

Sorry..........I'm having brain fog..either having the grandchildren or menapause...lol

Did Maud die in Australia??? If so, her father's name wuld be on the death cert if anyone knew it.
But I'm assuming, as she married under under her 'adopted' father's name, that will be the same.

[HarrysMum]

Did Maud have a middle name??

There are only 9 Mauds born 1902/03 in Cambridge on FreeBMD and only one without a middle name.
I suppose you could search all of them in the 1911 and see if any are not where they should be...............barring deahts of course.

[Anstey Nomad]

Thanks Libby - I'll check out Free BMD and the 1911. Will also ask her granddaughter if she has a copyof her Death Certificate.

Cheers

AN

[kiterunner]

AN, I've removed the name of the lady as she is still living and obviously can't give her consent for her details to be posted on here. I don't think her name is necessary for this research, though?

Yes, illegitimate children were baptised but it is unlikely that the father's name would appear in the baptism entry anyway.

Edit - sorry, didn't realise you were thinking she was registered under her father's name! In that case, his name would very likely be on the baptism too, yes.

[Margaret in Burton]

I have hundreds of Mortlock's in my tree, all from Suffolk though.

Take a look here:

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~tonym/mortlock.html

Contact Tony to add yours to the site, there are loads of people who have done.

[email protected]

There is also a guy called Robert Griffiths who is doing an unofficial one name study of Mortlocks. His email addy is on that site.

I haven't been in touch with him for years and really must go and catch up on the archive.

[Margaret in Burton]

Oh, and you will find that Mortlock is horribly mistranscribed sometimes, Mortlack and Mortlake are a couple of examples.

My grandmothers maiden name was Mortlock

[Margaret in Burton]

There is always a possibility that Julia married after 1911.

Jeanette is Julia's sister.

1881 census

RG11; Piece: 1609; Folio: 9; Page: 11


1891

RG12; Piece: 1241; Folio 14; Page 22


1901 living with Jeanette and her husband and transcribed as Medlock, the image does say Mortlock

RG13; Piece: 2913; Folio: 171; Page: 34

[Margaret in Burton]

Looking back through the census, these Mortlocks appear to have originated from Swavesey, Cambridgeshire. Quite a large family back to 1841.

[Margaret in Burton]

Going back to Maud.

If you assume that Julia gave birth where her parents lived, that comes under St Ives, Cambridgeshire.
Searching just for Maud and no surname comes up with:

Maud Hard, June qtr 1903 St Ives 3b 282

Maud Smith, Sept qtr 1903 St Ives 3b 287

[Anstey Nomad]

Sorry KR - didn't think!

Marg - our Mortlocks are from Swavesey in Cambridgeshire and then Holywell cum Needingworth, but Jeanette and Julia's brother lived in Cambridge. Can't find anything on Ancestry that looks like an obvious marriage for Julia but can't find an obvious death either.

Looks like I am going to be spending this cold weekend pedalling the 1911 census!

Thanks again

AN

[Margaret in Burton]

Have a good look at that Mortlock website. You never know. There are Mortlock's from all over the world on there (mine included).

[Anstey Nomad]

Have now found Julia on the 1911 as a Cook at Berners Hall in Ongar and I think I have found a death for her, back home in St Ives in MQ 1957, still unmarried at the age of
80. Will be getting the certificate for that one.

Need to have a good look now at all these various Mauds...

Thanks for your input

AN

[Anstey Nomad]

Marg - is there a quick way of opening the Works files on Tony's website? I know I have tried and failed before and had to get Mr Griffiths to e mail me the information, but is there an easy way? I would like to go back and look to see if there is anything I have missed.

AN

[Margaret in Burton]

Marg - is there a quick way of opening the Works files on Tony's website? I know I have tried and failed before and had to get Mr Griffiths to e mail me the information, but is there an easy way? I would like to go back and look to see if there is anything I have missed.

AN

Ah I remember that problem. All I can suggest is right clicking and then "open with" and choose whatever your word processing program is. Robert Griffiths insists on using Works, I don't know why.

[Anstey Nomad]

Hi Margaret

I've finally dug this out again (OH is MIA for the rest of the day so I finally have some time). Maud Hard is on the 1911, so it's not her. Maud Smiths are not uncommon...and they move about.

I've also looked on Free BMD for Mauds (no middle name) born in Cambridgeshire in 1902 and from that list I have two unaccounted for. Think I'd better ask for the certs and see what happens.

It says Cambridge for the POB on the 1911 and Julia certainly had a brother in Cambridge. He lived in the same street as the Medlocks so we presume this is how Julia's sister met her husband. If it really was Cambridge, Maud could haev been baptised at St Giles, which seems to be the family church.

Onwards and upwards

AN

[Margaret in Burton]

Hi Sheila

Have you had anymore contact with Robert Griffiths or any luck with Tony Mortlock's website?

[Anstey Nomad]

No Marg I haven't - been very lax of late - too much sitting around in Browns with ice cream sundaes on my days off and not enough research!

Sheila

[Margaret in Burton]

No Marg I haven't - been very lax of late - too much sitting around in Browns with ice cream sundaes on my days off and not enough research!

Sheila


Nice though aren't they. :D:d

[Anstey Nomad]

Resurrecting this thread to say that Maud's granddaughter from Oz has just left after being with us for a week as part of what she calls her Adventia before Dementia. We're still none the wiser as to Maud's name at birth, but apparently she remembered all her life being put on a train from London to Cov at the age of 3, on her own, with a label, like Paddington Bear, so we think that her mother may have tried to keep her and then found she could not and then sent her to her sister. Poor little soul. We've been to the house where she grew up, the house where her daughter was born and we have met some real live Mortlocks in Huntingdonshire, who are related.

Such a pleasure to take Maud's granddaughter to the churchyard where her great grandmother is buried - the great grandmother that was always referred to as 'great aunt' because of the stain of illegitimacy.

Makes you think

AN

[Margaret in Burton]

It's a shame that you couldn't find out more Sheila but pleased she enjoyed her stay.

[Anstey Nomad]

What i do know now marg is that Maud was born on 6 March 1902 and lied about her birth date in future years to hide the fact that she was pregnant when she married. All this about her pregnancy and her illegitimacy came out at the end of her life when someone in the family found some paperwork that went missing after her death (wouldn't you know it).

According to the 1911 census she was born in Cambridge, but I can't find anything under the MQ or JQ for 1902. There's nothing in Cov either. However, if she came to Cov from London she may have been born there...bet that's a big job...

[Margaret in Burton]

Well according to FreeBMD there are no Maud Mortlock's born in 1902 anywhere in the country.