Job done?

After all that breast beating about my failure to find my grandmother's birth in my previous blog entries, when the birth certificate for Florence Brooks eventually arrived, everything was wrong. The date of birth was wrong; the father's name was wrong and the father's occupation was wrong. Back to the drawing board! The census entry showed a sister for Florence whose name was Minnie, apparently born in Clerkenwell about 1873. I decided to look for her birth. Free BMD had a Minnie registered in the March quarter of 1874 in Holborn. Since Clerkenwell became part of the Holborn registration district in1869, this looked hopeful and so I ordered a copy.

When this certificate arrived, it looked pretty good. The father's name and occupation were right and the mother's forename matched the census entry. According to this certificate, the mother's maiden name was Selwood, so I looked for a marriage, but failed to find it. Fortunately, my wife has more patience than I have and she did find it - in 1885, nearly fifteen years after the birth of my grandmother. It looks as if my g grandmother was economical with the truth when she registered her daughter Minnie. On the other hand, John Brooks does seem to be acknowledging paternity for both Florence and Minnie in the 1891 census entry which was presumably prepared by him. Even if John Brooks was the father of Florence, it is possible she was registered under the name Selwood, so back to free BMD. No luck. The only Florence Selwood was registered too early and in the wrong place.

No matter, the chain of evidence looks good. The father’s name and occupation on the 1891 census matches the marriage certificate of Florence Brooks and Joseph Matthews; the location is right and Florence’s age is right. The date of Minnie’s birth certificate, father’s name and occupation match the census entry. As far as the marriage is concerned, the names are right, the relative ages are right and John Brooks occupation is right. Failure to find Florence’s birth certificate is slightly worrying, but I think the evidence is strong enough to suggest she was the daughter of John Brooks (son of John Brooks, a deceased tailor) and Florence Selwood (daughter of William Selwood, a deceased carpenter).

The late marriage may be explained by an 1861 census entry (found by my wife) which has a John Brooks living with his wife Jemima. Did he leave Jemima to live with Florence and eventually marry her – either bigamously or when Jemima died? That could be another interesting project!