A couple of posts ago, I found my great-grandmother Ada Howard and her parents in the 1911 census. I thought I’d return to this particular line of my family history and concentrate on tracking it back a bit further.
Ada was seven in the 1911 census, suggesting that she was born in around 1903/1904. The census form also states that my great-grandmother was born in Buntingford, Hertfordshire. By searching the birth indexes at findmypast.co.uk, I found the following entry for an Ada Maria Howard born in Royston in 1903.
Ada Maria Howard's birth record
I gave Royston a quick google and it seems it’s only about eight miles away from Buntingford. It therefore looked likely that this was the record of my great-grandmother’s birth, so I used the reference details provided to order Ada’s birth certificate from the General Register Office.
Ada Maria Howard's birth certificate
The birth certificate tells me that Ada was born on 11th June 1903 in Layston, Buntingford. It informs me that her father, Ernest Howard, was a Chimney Sweeper Master and that her mother’s name was Mercy. Interestingly, Mercy’s maiden name was Howard – perhaps a sign that my great-great-grandparents were cousins?
I’ve updated the Howard side of my family tree with the details I’ve gleaned from both the 1911 census and Ada’s birth certificate. I think I’ll continue tracing this particular branch of my family tree for the time being – I’d love to find out a bit more about Ernest’s occupation and also whether there really was a bit of inter-family marriage in the Howard line.
The Howard branch of my family tree
November 1, 2010 at 5:18 pm |
My friend is a Howard from the Lancaster area, and unfortunately there’s a complication with researching her family in the 19th century: they mostly didn’t get enumerated or registered. The family were cant-speaking Scottish travelling gypsies whose route was between Lancaster and Durham, and Howard was a common surname among them. I wonder if a master chimney sweep might’ve been from a similar family.
November 5, 2010 at 12:08 pm |
Hmmm, I wonder! I’d love to find travellers in my tree – though I imagine this makes them very difficult to track back through the censuses.
September 30, 2011 at 3:24 pm |
[...] A little while ago I discovered that my maternal great-great-grandmother Mercy had the same maiden name as her married name: Howard. This made me wonder whether Mercy Howard may have been related to her husband (my great-great-grandfather) Ernest Howard. I’ve been doing a bit of digging and I’m becoming more and more convinced that they were. [...]