I came back from a weekend away to discover the will I ordered last Friday on the mat.
Jane Gerhold died in 1926. She was the girl apparently brought up apart from her family. She leaves money to my cousin's great grandparents, to her illegitimate son, to the companion who was presumably looking after her, and to her two nephews, Lionel and Louis Burn, sons of her sister Martha Gerhold.
For completeness, I checked to see what happened to these boys: whether they had married etc.
Louis did marry: in 1905, to Sybil Pattisson.
And suddenly something clicked in my brain. My original brief had been to try to find a connection between the Gerhold and the Pattisson families, as Sybil's sister Emily was described as an aunt within the family, but nobody had known the relationship!
When I phoned my cousin, she pointed out that we had been looking at the wedding photo of Louis and Sybil!! Only then we knew who Sybil was but not Louis.
Since starting researching, I have found a descendant of Jane's son, who clearly thought that the boy was abandoned and uncared for. The will demonstrates that the mother did care, so my next task is to get in touch with them.
Jane Gerhold died in 1926. She was the girl apparently brought up apart from her family. She leaves money to my cousin's great grandparents, to her illegitimate son, to the companion who was presumably looking after her, and to her two nephews, Lionel and Louis Burn, sons of her sister Martha Gerhold.
For completeness, I checked to see what happened to these boys: whether they had married etc.
Louis did marry: in 1905, to Sybil Pattisson.
And suddenly something clicked in my brain. My original brief had been to try to find a connection between the Gerhold and the Pattisson families, as Sybil's sister Emily was described as an aunt within the family, but nobody had known the relationship!
When I phoned my cousin, she pointed out that we had been looking at the wedding photo of Louis and Sybil!! Only then we knew who Sybil was but not Louis.
Since starting researching, I have found a descendant of Jane's son, who clearly thought that the boy was abandoned and uncared for. The will demonstrates that the mother did care, so my next task is to get in touch with them.
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