Genealogy Forum UK

Hello All.

I finally got subscribed to Ancestry, which has helped me get past quite a few brick walls. Unfortunately, I seem to have hit on a new one. Isabella Clark married (John) Thomas Baxter in 1881 when she was 15 and he 24. She grew up in the house of her Auntie Ann and Uncle John, the Stacey family, either in Kellington or the Pontefract district - the forms are sometimes specific, other times quite broad. Thomas was a lodger there at the time of the 1881 census which is probably how events eventuated!

However, I am struggling to sort out her Clark grandparents, or her real mother's name. I am assuming somewhat that she was given her mother's maiden name, though I realise it could just as easily be that her father died and left her with his sister. In other words, I'm stuck. The marriage record at the parish for the Baxter-Clark marriage has an embarrassing gap where their fathers' names should be... No surprise in the circumstances.

Could anyone suggest further ways past the problem? I tried creating slots on the tree for Granny and Grandpa Clark, but still have no clue as to their names.

marriage cert witnesses might help ?


Marriages Jun 1881

BAXTER Thomas Pontefract 9c 115
CLARK Isabella Pontefract 9c 115

I've tried the parish records, and they didn't even list their fathers' names. It was a rush job, her being well under age and baby Arthur well on the way! I thought that parental consent - even by proxy through her uncle - would have been necessary for the wedding, and banns in view of her being under age, which is clearly marked on the parish record.

The witnesses are one Thomas Shipman, and one Martha Copley. Hmmm... I will try to find links with them, but it does not fit with other names in the family, so they look to be either church staff/volunteers, close friends, or kind strangers off the street.

I had hoped that in tracing the Auntie, Ann Stacey nee Clark, would get me the grandparents and then the potential parent/s for Isabella. One thing that is either a clue or a hindrance is that on one document, Isabella was recorded as "Elizabeth". It might be a Freudian slip.

can you post what census info you have might help ?

Here goes:

Name: Isabela Clark
Age: 5
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1866
Relation: Niece
Gender: Female
Where born: Kellington, Yorkshire, England
Civil Parish: Kellington
Town: Kellington
County/Island: Yorkshire
Country: England
Registration District: Pontefract
Sub-registration District: Whitley
ED, institution, or vessel: 5
Household Schedule Number: 35
Piece: 4633
Folio: 68
Page Number: 6
Household Members:
Name Age
John Stacey 41
Ann Stacey 35
George Stacey 7
Isabela Clark 5 ***
Hardy Jackson 54 Boarder unmarried.

And

Elizab. Clark
Age: 15
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1866
Relationship to Head: Niece
Gender: Female
Where born: Kellington, Yorkshire, England

Civil Parish: Kellington
County/Island: Yorkshire
Country: England

Street Address: Kellington
Education:

Employment status:

View Image
Occupation: Farm Serv (Dom)

Registration District: Pontefract
Sub-registration District: Whitley
ED, institution, or vessel: 5
Neighbors: View others on page
Piece: 4587
Folio: 69
Page Number: 11
Household Members:
Name Age
John Stacy 51
Ann Stacy 42
George Stacy 17
Joe Stacy 9
John Wm. Stacy 1
Elizab. Clark 15 ***
Thos. Baxter 24 Boarder unmarried.

And then

Isabella Clark
Age: Under Age
Marriage or Bann Date: 23 Apr 1881
Parish: Kellington, St Edmund with Whitley, All Saints
Spouse's Name: Thomas Boxter (this is known to be mistranscribed).

All subsequent records she is Isabella or Isabela Baxter.

I cannot find a birth record at all for her, or seem to find a potential parent of either gender. I'm now starting to wonder if I should rename her Elizabeth and consider Isabella as a diminutive for Elizabeth, or try speculating that her mother is Elizabeth/Isabella and see whether that unlocks something. I don't like the idea of making a mess by speculating too far, though.

The Stacey family is Stacey everywhere until the 1881 census and then things get muddled and they get relisted as Stacy. Many of them worked as domestic servants - as did many of the rest of the family - or farm labourers, so quite often they don't even have enough schooling to write their own names and simply draw a small cross or X on official documents. Sad but indicative of their lives in general!

??
freebmd

Births Mar 1866
Clark Isabella Pontefract 9c 81

That's the one - I got that file from freeBMD, but it doesn't mention her parents anywhere. When I tried to find it through ancestry, I found that the pages seem to have got fudged up. I can search her by "manually" scanning through the scanned GRO pages for that year and find her, but the index seems to have got out of sync with the pages. None of the names in the index match the scan they are attached to, which I have had to report to the site maintenance team...

I would love to know how to get past this point. Perhaps I need to try each scenario in the charts and see how many little leaves start wagging! With two trees on the go, I normally have about 400 hints going off at any one time

Pontefract would poss come under leeds ?

so possible one of these

births

CLARK Isabella 1863 Leeds West Yorkshire Leeds WEST/68/395

CLARK Isabella 1864 Hunslet Yorkshire Leeds HUNS/47/333

YorksClare wrote:That's the one - I got that file from freeBMD, but it doesn't mention her parents anywhere. When I tried to find it through ancestry, I found that the pages seem to have got fudged up. I can search her by "manually" scanning through the scanned GRO pages for that year and find her, but the index seems to have got out of sync with the pages. None of the names in the index match the scan they are attached to, which I have had to report to the site maintenance team...

I would love to know how to get past this point. Perhaps I need to try each scenario in the charts and see how many little leaves start wagging! With two trees on the go, I normally have about 400 hints going off at any one time

You wont find parents names unless you order the certificate from the GRO or local register office. Unless of course she was christend and you will have to check local Parish records

Well, her husband, Thomas Baxter born 1856 according to every census, is a mystery in himself. I have had an interesting evening chasing his origins (or attempting to) and it just got even weirder!

He was living with Joseph Haigh and his wife Hannah (nee Stones) - described in the records as their nephew - in the house right next door to where Isabella Clark was growing up with her uncle and aunt. (He then moved in with them by 1881, and was married to her within no time - their first little one came about 3 months after the wedding.) I decided to start a fresh tree to find out which side he was a nephew from. I discovered that Joseph's mother Elizabeth was a Baxter, and so spent an evening chasing up her brothers and sisters to see who had a Thomas Baxter as a son. Two have had Thomas Baxter sons - one born in 1852, and one born in 1859, Thomas Edwin. As far as I can see from the census data, Thomas Baxter 1852 appears in the census data living with his parents, John and Mary, which would not match up with busy Thomas Baxter who had umpteen children with Isabella. Thomas Edwin had moved away to Hull and appears likewise in the census there. So either I have a random Thomas Baxter, or in the course of the census being taken - for 1881, 1891 and 1901 - Thomas Baxter got recorded in two households at once while caring simultaneously for his parents and his family. It would be possible in a village as small as Knottingley, but I do wonder whether someone somewhere was not recording the census data properly. Very confusing!

I may have to do some similar digging to get to the bottom of whether Isabella Clark was genuinely a niece of the Stacey family by chasing that down the rabbit holes of the census data and marriage records until I hit something sensible there... That's a job for another night, though. I need a bath and bed.

grangers14 wrote:??
freebmd

Births Mar 1866
Clark Isabella Pontefract 9c 81

Your best bet would be to get this as Pontefract covers Kellington for registrations.

I can see that Ann Clark appears to have been working in Kellington by 1861 (marries in 1862) and gives her birth as 1839 in Hensall.
On Ancestry only these entries for Clark born Hensall

1861 England Census 1861 UK Census Collection View Image
Name: Ann Clark
Birth: abt 1839 - Hensall , Yorkshire, England
Residence: 1861 - township, city, Yorkshire, England

1861 England Census 1861 UK Census Collection View Image
Name: Mary Clark
Birth: abt 1841 - Hensall , Yorkshire, England
Residence: 1861 - Hensall , Yorkshire, England

1861 England Census 1861 UK Census Collection View Image
Name: Samuel Clark
Birth: abt 1859 - Hensall , Yorkshire, England
Residence: 1861 - Hensall , Yorkshire, England

1861 England Census 1861 UK Census Collection View Image
Name: Sarah J Clark
Birth: abt 1861 - Hensall , Yorkshire, England
Residence: 1861 - Hensall , Yorkshire, England

You might get some joy from chasing them.

Hi peterd - Pontefract is a massive reporting zone, separate from Leeds. It was a much bigger and more influential place then than it is now. Many of the births I am chasing up are from Kellington and Knottingley, but they are all on the Pontefract registers. The next nearest and most likely source is Selby, but I've drawn a blank there so far. A good suggestion, though!

I will try to find those census records, and see if I can identify a single Ann Clark who stands out as being the most credible match for the tree I have. I have been looking up the census records for particular villages in particular years and then clicking through all the pages to see what exactly is going on, with who living next to whom. That was partly how I started to uncover what was seemingly going on with Thomas Baxter, though I am not satisfied that I have fully got that straightened out. He is one slippery person...

Is this still a Brickwall, or have you solved it?
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