Research thinking skills
Read the question below, sent in by reader Joan Daw, who is wondering whether the Thomas Stead she has on her tree was discreetly raised by a couple, to protect the woman she believes to be his unmarried mother from disapproval? Write down your thoughts and we will publish David Annal’s answer in the next issue.
Joan Dawes writes:
I would welcome some advice about Thomas Stead, raised in a branch of our family tree that is of particular interest to us because the father, Thomas Stephenson Stead, was a brother of our great-grandfather and he married Susannah Mary Shaw, our great-grandmother’s sister.
The family came from Yorkshire but lived in Tottenham. They had a son called Thomas born on 24 December 1898 but died on 9 September 1899. I have his birth and death certificates. By the 1901 Census they had had a second son, Charles Stephenson Stead, born on 23 June 1900. Martha Ann Shaw, Susannah’s sister, was also living with them, as was one-year-old Thomas Shaw. Thomas and Susannah also had a daughter, Charlotte Mary Stead born on 16 November 1902.