Michael
27-08-10, 00:14
In 1881 Lydia Haigh (b Masborough, Yorkshire, c1839) was living with her husband Dan in Sheffield, RG11/4651. Joseph Knight (b Lubenham, Leicestershire, c1839) was living with his mother Jane in Lubenham, RG11/3120.
In 1882 Dan Haigh died; in 1884 Lydia remarried to 'a' Joseph Knight (Joseph presumably left his mother to look after herself; I've got a death record in 1893 which I think is hers, although I can't find her in 1891).
So far, so good. People often remarried after their first spouse died. But...
In 1891 Joseph and Lydia turn up in Normanton, Sheffield, RG12/3843 - with four children (Charles, Thomas, Frederick and Robert) recorded as being born between 1871 and 1880! There are a bunch of kids with the same names, ages and birthplace (Woodhouse Mill) in 1881, with their parents Joseph (b Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire) and Eliza Knight (RG11/4669).
I suspect what's happened here is simply that Joseph (the Ashby de la Zouch one) and Elizabeth were the parents of Charles, Thomas, Frederick and Robert, that Elizabeth died and Joseph remarried to Lydia, and that the fact that in 1891 he lists his birthplace as Lubenham is a giant red herring and in fact he's got nothing to do with my Lubenham-born Joseph at all (there's a record for Joseph Knight dying in Leicestershire in 1886, which might possibly be his but I can't be certain).
I know people sometimes changed their minds about where they were born from one census to the next - giving the name of a district rather than that of the city, or 'moving' from one village to another a few miles up the road - but Ashby de la Zouch to Lubenham doesn't seem a particularly obvious change to make (they're about 30 miles apart) and it's something of a coincidence that, of all the Leicestershire villages he could have chosen to tell the enumerator as his birthplace, he chose the precise one where a namesake of his was born at almost the same time, who had appeared on the previous census but not the next one. Incidentally, Joseph turns up again in 1901, still in Normanton but now married to an Elizabeth (Lydia died in 1892), with Robert still living with them, and still giving his birthplace as Lubenham rather than AdlZ.
Your thoughts would be appreciated!
In 1882 Dan Haigh died; in 1884 Lydia remarried to 'a' Joseph Knight (Joseph presumably left his mother to look after herself; I've got a death record in 1893 which I think is hers, although I can't find her in 1891).
So far, so good. People often remarried after their first spouse died. But...
In 1891 Joseph and Lydia turn up in Normanton, Sheffield, RG12/3843 - with four children (Charles, Thomas, Frederick and Robert) recorded as being born between 1871 and 1880! There are a bunch of kids with the same names, ages and birthplace (Woodhouse Mill) in 1881, with their parents Joseph (b Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire) and Eliza Knight (RG11/4669).
I suspect what's happened here is simply that Joseph (the Ashby de la Zouch one) and Elizabeth were the parents of Charles, Thomas, Frederick and Robert, that Elizabeth died and Joseph remarried to Lydia, and that the fact that in 1891 he lists his birthplace as Lubenham is a giant red herring and in fact he's got nothing to do with my Lubenham-born Joseph at all (there's a record for Joseph Knight dying in Leicestershire in 1886, which might possibly be his but I can't be certain).
I know people sometimes changed their minds about where they were born from one census to the next - giving the name of a district rather than that of the city, or 'moving' from one village to another a few miles up the road - but Ashby de la Zouch to Lubenham doesn't seem a particularly obvious change to make (they're about 30 miles apart) and it's something of a coincidence that, of all the Leicestershire villages he could have chosen to tell the enumerator as his birthplace, he chose the precise one where a namesake of his was born at almost the same time, who had appeared on the previous census but not the next one. Incidentally, Joseph turns up again in 1901, still in Normanton but now married to an Elizabeth (Lydia died in 1892), with Robert still living with them, and still giving his birthplace as Lubenham rather than AdlZ.
Your thoughts would be appreciated!