This time it's a GRO error!

[Phoenix]

Flora Horn(e) b 1857 comes from a family of b*stards. She is one of five, her siblings have their fair share, so do her cousins etc.

So when I found her as Flora Meades, with her mother Fanny and a small Meades son, conveniently born in Portsmouth, which is some distance from the village on the fringes of Salisbury where her mother lived, I put two & two together.

Especially since I could find no marriage for her.

However, Ancestry shows a Flora Meads in 1891, with husband James. Birthplace wrong, but she's the right age.

I had another look, and she is transcribed on freebmd as Hornden:

Marriages Mar 1875 Fareham 2b 705
HORNDEN Flora
MEADS James

When you look at the original page, a printed one, there is clearly a typo. The names go from John Hornden to Catherine Hornden. Clearly Catherine & all the other "Horndens" are actually Hornes and doomed to linger in obscurity. And I had maligned poor Flora!