Help reading witness names please

[Just Gillian]

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec/?htx=View&r=5538&dbid=1623&iid=31280_198887-00170&fn=John&ln=Hadrill&st=d&ssrc=&pid=4099109

John Hadrill and Mary Ann Osborne

I can read George and Harriett and the surname looks as if it is probably the same for both, but I can't even decide on the first letter.

[chrissiebee]

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec/?htx=View&r=5538&dbid=1623&iid=31280_198887-00170&fn=John&ln=Hadrill&st=d&ssrc=&pid=4099109

John Hadrill and Mary Ann Osborne

I can read George and Harriett and the surname looks as if it is probably the same for both, but I can't even decide on the first letter.

I would definitely say the surname begins with 'H' - if you look just below the second signature which says 'Harriet' with a tiny cross beside it, the letter 'H' is identical methinks. 'Hurman' perhaps?

Chris

[Just Gillian]

Thanks Chris - I was torn between H and A. I'll go and check for likely Hurmans on census or BMD.

[Nell]

And look for Herman too!

[Just Gillian]

Thanks Nell.

I'll have a go with Herman this afternoon - I'm just off to meet my sister for lunch as we won £10 each on last night's lottery!

I haven't found any likely George and Harriet Hur*/ Har* on the census and phonetic surname searches on BMD marriages haven't produced any likely prospects either.

[chrissiebee]

I don't know if this is any good:

There is a marriage between a George Harman and Harriet Braby in Lambeth in 1870. Plenty of George Harman's, but no matches that I can see with a 'Harriett'.

Chris

[Jackie H]

Possibly Humm?

[Just Gillian]

Chris - thanks for looking through possible marriages.

Jackie - thank you, it is Humm!

George Humm married Harriet Osborn 1867 and the census shows her pob as Harling Norfolk, the same as bride Mary Ann Osborne, so likely to be a sister. Better still, the 1891 census, when their surname was transcribed as "Human" lol, showed a lodger William Bowyer.

Poor John Hadrill, the groom of my first post, was "deemed insane" and sent to Leavesden Asylum in 1888, dying there in 1895. In the meantime, John and Mary Ann's children were in and out of the workhouse over the course of several years. I had always wondered why one of them, Phyllis had been discharged to her mother at a Tottenham Court Road address in 1892. This is George and Harriet's 1891 address!

Mary Ann, the bride of my first post, had two children by William Bowyer, Harriet's lodger, before marrying him in 1896. Mary Ann and William, along with all the surviving children of both marriages, emigrated to Australia in 1909.

Isn't it great when so many loose ends can be tied in at last - with a little help from my friends!!

[maggie_4_7]

I had been looking at those witness names for ages - Humm!!!

Oh well.

Blimey some of these ancestors of ours really didn't have nice lives did they.

:(

[Jackie H]

I only recognised it because I know someone with that surname. Pleased I could help :)

[Just Gillian]

Maggie - John's brother Joseph and his family were also in and out of the workhouse for years, one of his children being born in there and dying two days later. Joseph's wife was also "supposed insane" eventually - small wonder!

And yet 5 other brothers seemed to fare well enough in London, after migrating from Wiltshire too. They didn't make a fortune, but, going by Booth's poverty map, they certainly weren't in the poorest streets.

John's children seem to have lived long lives in Australia, going by electoral rolls. Let's hope they were happy after their rotten start!

Jackie - I've never come across the name before. I wonder what its history is - it sounds vaguely Germanic.