Showing posts with label Brighton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brighton. Show all posts

Monday, November 9, 2020

Profile: Edwin Lawrence Williams [1869-?] and Maude Alfreda Eastman [1869-?]

Edwin Lawrence Williams [1869-?] and Maude Alfreda Eastman [1869-?]

Edwin Lawrence Williams was born in Mount Forest, Wellington, Ontario in June 1869 [D03788, D03789, D05223, D05224, D05225, D05226]. He was the youngest child of Isaac Williams and Caroline Seymour Sanders.

Edwin moved around with the family from Mount Forest to Port Perry and then eventually to Lindsay, Victoria County [D03789]. At the age of twelve, Edwin assisted his father’s bookkeeping work [D03789] but later learned the trade of a jeweller. He first worked in Brighton, Northumberland [D05223, D05224] but later found work in a watch factory in Toronto [D05225, D05226].

Edwin married Maude Alfreda Eastman on 7 Jan 1891 in Toronto [D05223]. Maude was the daughter of Benjamin Eastman and Sarah Alfreda. She was born in February of 1869 in Minden, Haliburton County [D05223, D05224, D06663, D06664] and grew up there [D06663, D06664].

Edwin and Maude continued to live in Toronto after they were married, residing at 58 Elmer Ave [D05226].



Sources
[D03788] 1871 census of Canada, Ontario, district 35, sub-district e, Mount Forest, p. 49, dwelling 173, family 173; RG 31; digital images(accessed 20 May 2018).

[D03789] 1881 census of Canada, Ontario, district 129, sub-district B-2, Lindsay, Victoria, p. 99, dwelling 458, family 469; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.ca (accessed 20 May 2018).

[D05223] Ontario Archives of Ontario, Ontario, Canada Marriages, Reel 73: 322, 14007, Williams-Eastman; digital images, Ancestry.ca, "Ontario, Canada Marriages,"(accessed 22 Dec 2018).

[D05224] 1891 census of Canada, Ontario, district 98, sub-district 1, Brighton, p. 17, family 86; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.ca, Ancestry (accessed 22 Dec 2018).

[D05225] 1911 census of Canada, Ontario, district 125, sub-district 33, Toronto, p. 12, dwelling 119, family 135; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 22 Dec 2018).

[D05226] 1921 census of Canada, district 142, sub-district 33, Toronto, p. 13, dwelling 64, family 82; RG 31; digital images, ancestry.com (accessed 22 Dec 2018).

[D06663] 1871 census of Canada, Ontario, district 53, sub-district G, Minden Hills, p. 3, dwelling 7, family 7; RG 31; digital images(accessed 25 Jan 2020).

[D06664] 1881 census of Canada, Ontario, district 125, sub-district P, Minden, p. 2, dwelling 7, family 7; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.ca (accessed 25 Jan 2020).

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Elizabeth Mitchell Baptism - Solved!

My 3Xgreat-grandmother was born Elizabeth Mitchell in 1820 (according to census records). She married George Ockenden in 1850 in Ifield, Sussex, England.

To go back further to the previous generation, I needed to get a record of her birth, but being born before 1837 I would need to get a baptism record. Census records confirm a birth year of about 1820 and a location of Crawley, Sussex. Her marriage record also confirms the birth year and gives a name for her father of James Mitchell.

A number of years ago, I did a search on the British Isles Vital Records Index for an Elizabeth Mitchell born in 1820 with a father named James and found a baptism record from Brighton, Sussex, which is not far from Crawley. So I made the assumption that this was the baptism record. The parents were James and Elizabeth Mitchell. Now, this was back in my early days of genealogical research when I really didn't know any better and so back then I was not as thorough with my research as I am now. So, I didn't bother questioning the fact that the baptism was in a different location than the other records would have suggested.

From there, I started researching the next generation by looking for a marriage between a James Mitchell and an Elizabeth as well as early census records.

Fast-forward to today and I'm undergoing a genealogy do-over of sorts. When I looked at the information I had, I started questioning how I knew that the mother's name was Elizabeth. I realized that the only proof that I had was the baptism index record for an Elizabeth Mitchell born in Brighton, and then started to question it. I did some more research and eventually found a baptism record for an Elizabeth Mitchell baptised in Crawley, Sussex in 1820 to a James & Mary Mitchell.




Not only does this Baptism fit the time and place, but when I had another look at the older census records I found that I had completely missed this clue from the 1851 census, the year after George and Elizabeth were married:



Living on either side of George and Elizabeth are his parents and her parents. I completely missed this because I was looking for a James and Elizabeth rather than a James and Mary. The answer had been staring me in my face all along!

As an added bonus, I have also noted that there is a family with the surname Bowers also on the census page. My suspicion is that Mary's maiden name is Bowers so I will need to look into that a bit further.