Cracking the dead rellies code

[Katarzyna]

This is Edward Charles and Harriet on 1901:

RG13; Piece: 1011; Folio: 34; Page: 17

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=uki1901&h=819817&ti=5538&indiv=try&gss=pt&ssrc=pt_t31168745_p12377650647_kpidz0q3d12377650647z0q26pgz0q3d32768z0q26pgPLz0q3dpid

1911

RG14PN5613 RG78PN254 RD90 SD4 ED21 SN159
4 Broad St Portsmouth

EMERY, Grace Macgregor

Servant

Single

F

19

1892

Housemaid Domestic

born Southampton Gosport

RG14PN5560 RD90 SD2 ED44 SN9999
Institution: Royal Marine Artillery Barracks And Infirmary, R.M.A MEDICAL BARRACKS

EMERY, Samuel Malcolm

Single

M

15

1896

Boy R M B

Hants Gosport

RG14PN34974 RD640 SD5 ED11 SN9999
Institution: Royal Naval Hospital, SHIP: ROYAL NAVAL HOSPITAL, CHINA, HONG KONG

EMERY, Charles Robert

Single

?

24

1887

Gosport Hants

RG14PN5556 RG78PN252 RD90 SD2 ED35 SN107
1 Eastern Terrace St Georges Road Southsea

EMERY, Ethel

Servant

Single

?

General Servant Domestic

Gosport Hamsphire

RG14PN5635 RG78PN255 RD91 SD1 ED13 SN88
155 Forton Road Gosport

EMERY, Harriey Elizabeth

Head

Widow

F

55

1856

Cope Town South Africa Resident

Harriet married 39 yrs
12 children, 7 living 5 died

[Katarzyna]

Death:
EMERY, Edward Charles
Alverstoke, Hampshire
1910 Age61
Apr-May-Jun
2B 331


EMERY, Harriet E
Alverstoke Hampshire
1929
Jan-Feb-Mar
Age 74

2B 1203

[JLB]

I am still having problems with this family ,so I would appreciate any thoughts please.

I discovered that youngest son Henry Thomas Emery died in Feb 1854 in Lower North Street Chelsea and in August that year a Sarah Emery age 42 had also died in Lower North st.I felt that this could be John snr's wife so I took a chance and ordered her death cert hoping that it would say wife or widow of John.Well it says that she died at 21 Lower North Street but wife of EDWARD Emery, a Keeper at Bedlam Hospital !!Informant was M ary Barry from Chelsea Workhouse.
So it must be the wrong person?
I searched for a possible Edward but could'nt find one, so I got the death cert for Henry Thomas and he also died at 21 Lower North Street listed as son of John labourer, informant Sarah Emery at the same address.

I have a few certs where some of the info has proved to be wrong but I don't know what to think about this one! and of course it still doesn,t help me find out what happened to John.


Jan

Well, 4 years on I might have found the answer to what happened to John Emery senior but it is all a bit bizarre. I might just be clutching at straws here so any comments welcomed once again.
As I'm a very slow typist I'll probably post in short chunks.
As stated above I got the death cert for John's wife Sarah in 1854 and was thrown by the fact that her husband was listed as Edward a Keeper at Bedlam hospital.Thanks to a comment from Christine in Herts when the records for Bedlam/Bethlem Hospital came out on FMP recently I had a look and sure enough there was a John Emery listed from 1854 -1856. So I decided to have another go at him. One snag was that this John signed for his wages but "my" John made his mark on his marriage cert to Sarah Burt in 1837.On this cert his father is William a Miller and a William and Sarah signed as witnesses and I had decided that he was the John bapt Dec 1812 in Gosport in Hants.In the 1851 census ( the last one I had him in ) he just gives his birthplace as Hampshire.

tbc

Jan

[JLB]

I'd wondered if John had taken his two sons to his mother in Gosport after wife Sarah died as John jnr joined the Navy there in1855 and Edward Charles the army in 1859.
Anyway , back to John snr. I decided to look again at several records that I had seen in the past but always dismissed as they seemed so wrong.
One was the marriage on April 29th 1860 at St John's Fulham of a John Emery age 34 Batchelor Lab Father Henry a Miller, to a Sarah Napper also 34. This John signed his name and when I saw it I felt that it looked very much like the signatures of the John Emery who signed for his pay at Bethem!

I had also ruled out an 1871 Census record for a John Emery age 50 ( b c 1821) Titchfield hants. Not a million miles from Gosport but not that close,and his wife Sarah age 44. There was a john born 1822 in Titchfield but his father was Richard. I wondered if these two Johns were the same person.

tbc

Jan

[JLB]

So, could this marriage possibly be "my" John re-marrying? but he's knocked 14 years off his age ( b c 1826) ,he's a batchelor not a widower and his father is Henry not William although he is a Miller.
I decided to try and track the 1871 Census family.( They are under Emmery) in Chiswick Middlesex.
John age 50 Lab born Titchfield Hants
Sarah age 44 born Staines Middx
Henry age 11
Eliza age 9
Emma age 5

It is possible that Sarah died in 1880

I thought I would try to find marriages for these children .
Henry married an Elizabeth Linter in 1890. She came from the Portsmouth area.

Eliza married a Charles Wiggins in 1879 at St Mark Notting Hill.In 1883 they had a daughter named Eliza Rebecca Wiggins who on June 26th 1905 married George Henry Emery son of Edward Charles Emery!,who was John snr's son from his 1st? marriage.

I realize that this could just be an extroadinary coincidence.
If you are still with me and haven't fallen asleep
Any thoughts?

Jan

[Christine in Herts]

My first thought is that my brain is getting a bit frazzled just trying to get my head around them all! ;)

My next thought about marks/signatures on documents is that the existence of a mark in lieu of a signature isn't an absolutely reliable means of discounting someone whom you know could sign their name. If they had been told to "make their mark" by someone in authority who was presuming that they couldn't sign, they may not have had the self-confidence to assert their ability to sign.

Christine

[Olde Crone Holden]

I agree with Christine.

My great grandfather "made his mark" on his marriage cert. I have a small book of recipes he wrote in the most beautiful Victorian copperplate so I know absolutely that he could read and write. (That is not my only evidence, he went to Manchester Grammar School). He was an educated man. My thoughts - maybe not very charitable - are that maybe the Vicar forgot to get him to sign the register and got round that problem by making his mark, in the sure and certain knowledge that no one else was ever going to see the register he sent off to the GRO!

OC

[JLB]

Thanks for the replys folks,I know that it sounds complicated and indeed it is. Interestingly in the Bethlem records for Midsummer 1854 it states that "John Emery made his mark owing to an injury to his right hand"
It was the signature of John Emery signing for his pay that pretty well convinced me that it is the same as the one on the marriage to Sarah Napper and is indeed "my " John re -marrying despite the conflicting info on the cert. Maybe he had a few too many gins to celebrate!
I just feel that a grandson from the 1st marriage marrying a granddaughter from this marriage can't just be a coincidence.

I think now that John is also the John Emery that ends up in Brentford Union Workhouse .In 1881 he's age 68 ( b c 1813) Titchfield and in 1891 he's age 78 (b c 1813) much closer to what I think is his real age.


I may of course be wrong about all of this .


Jan

[DoctorGeoff]

Actually, "Solicitor" was an old description for a Lawyer - according to the Rootsweb list of old occupations.
Probably, the former copper had become a solicitor's clerk and was not really buggung up that much.
Geoffr

[Olde Crone Holden]

I still think it highly unlikely he was even a solicitor's clerk! That would require training and patronage.

Lawyers and Solicitors are slightly different occupations anyway.

OC

[JLB]

Geoff

I have no idea where John jnr got the Solicitor bit from. As far as I've been able to ascertain apart from a brief stint as a P C his father John snr seems to have been a labouring man just taking what jobs he could get.

On the other hand maybe the Curate made a mistake, because the bride's father was shown as John on the cert as well. I spent ages looking for him only to discover that he was in fact Josiah aka Joseph!

Jan

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I still think it highly unlikely he was even a solicitor's clerk! That would require training and patronage.

Lawyers and Solicitors are slightly different occupations anyway.

OC

And then there's been excitement for several of us when we've found a rellie transcribed as a lawyer - alas, our euphoria disappeared when the image revealed our professional lawyer to have been a manual sawyer;D

Jay

[Sue1]

I have come across, not too many years ago, a Police Officer, who was known as the "Coroners Officer" - an official title for the work he was doing. He liaised between the Coroner (who was a Solicitor - they usually are) and the hospital re pm results etc. Sue

[Olde Crone Holden]

But he was only a police constable (not an officer) for six years at the very very most, in the 1840s. I have one or two relatives whio were also Police Constables around that time and they didn't last very long, not being suited to the work, shall we say. Hardly likely to have picked up enough law to be able to work usefully for an attorney or lawyer.

(Yes, all those lawyers who turned out to be sawyers, lol).

My opinion is that he was a solicitor, meaning he plied for jobs or business, as what we would now call a commercial traveller.

OC

[JLB]

I have wondered what qualifications were required ( if any) to work as a Keeper at Bethlem Hospital. Maybe being an ex P C was enough?

Jan

[Olde Crone Holden]

None whatsoever, JLB. A keeper merely had to have the wish to work there, it wasn't a great job and there wouldn't have been many applicants. You only have to read of the conditions to know that. A Keeper might have been in a slightly better position than an Attendant but even so I would think it wasn't particularly desirable (unless of course it had accommodation with it).

OC

[Janet in Yorkshire]

The pay for any job in an organisation funded by rates, public subscription etc, was always poor, and there was never a long waiting list of hopeful candidates.

Jay

[Olde Crone Holden]

I hope I don't sound as if I'm putting your relative down, that's not my intention, I'm just trying to point out that he had mostly menial jobs, certainly not any white collar jobs and that alone makes me sure he was not in any profession such as a Solicitor, Lawyer or Attorney. He simply could not have made the leap at that time.

OC