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Why would a 5yr old be a lodger?

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  • Why would a 5yr old be a lodger?

    I'd missed Jane Gerhold b 1855 off the tree, although her baptism is on familysearch, because at the age of five she is a lodger, with an apparently unrelated woman in Plaistow.

    In 1871, aged 16, she is again with unrelated people. She is given no trade and has no relationship to the head of household.

    Her son John was born in 1879 in Gravesend and subsequently adopted.

    From 1881 she is living with her married sister, Martha. On one census she is shown as living on means, but she never has an occupation.

    There is never anything written in the final column, but do you reckon she was simple? It seems so odd that she should not be with her family while she was a child.
    Phoenix - with charred feathers
    Researching Skillings from Norfolk, Sworn from Salisbury and Adams in Malborough, Devon.

  • #2
    Lots of kids are not with their parents. The reasons are many.

    She could have been staying just that census night, or long term. Habe you checked the rest of the area. She's not staying with a friend up the road or round the corner, is she??

    What are rest of the family like?? Is she the only one not with the family?

    These things are really annoying, aren't they? I have a similar one, only my line is the family, not the little lodger.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Phoenix View Post
      I'd missed Jane Gerhold b 1855 off the tree, although her baptism is on familysearch, because at the age of five she is a lodger, with an apparently unrelated woman in Plaistow.

      In 1871, aged 16, she is again with unrelated people. She is given no trade and has no relationship to the head of household.

      Her son John was born in 1879 in Gravesend and subsequently adopted.

      From 1881 she is living with her married sister, Martha. On one census she is shown as living on means, but she never has an occupation.

      There is never anything written in the final column, but do you reckon she was simple? It seems so odd that she should not be with her family while she was a child.
      I think it quite likely there was some form of handicap and she was "boarded out."
      Janet in Yorkshire



      Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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      • #4
        Might her parentage have been in doubt? She may not have been welcomed by one or other parent.

        Christine
        Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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        • #5
          two children on one branch of my tree end up at one time or other with a woman that I can not find a relation to she just seems to end up with the odd one can not figure out why


          Laura

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          • #6
            Thank you all for your ideas. I've discovered that both Jane's parents left wills, so I think that is the next step to take. Hopefully she will be specifically mentioned. Her father left over £1000, so the family were not poor.

            I must confess that Christine's solution is not one that had occurred to me. I'm hoping that the fact she had means of her own indicate that her parents did take care of her.
            Phoenix - with charred feathers
            Researching Skillings from Norfolk, Sworn from Salisbury and Adams in Malborough, Devon.

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            • #7
              Phoenix

              One of my 2 x GGFs led me a right old dance, I couldn't find him anywhere on any census before 1891, when he was married.

              But I kept finding one of roughly the right age, living as a boarder, aged 7, with an elderly woman of no known connection.

              When I finally unravelled it, he was her GRANDSON! She had remarried twice and her birthplace was wrong (given as where she was living, not where she was born).

              OC

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