DIGGING DEEPER
Twiglets
TRACING BRANCHES
Diarist Gill Shaw charts the rollercoaster ride of researching her family history
I’ve a funny feeling that Mary, the last in line of my great-grandfather Mark John Leah’s nine siblings, may run rings around me. She’s at that difficult age. Recorded as six years old on the 1881 Census, she’ll be 16 by the time the next one comes around and the world’s her oyster – literally, if she ends up emigrating across the pond or down under like her closest-in-age brothers Harry and Ernest
. To be honest, I’m surprised I’ve not bumped into her already. She’d have been just 11 or 12 when her parents Martin and Mary died, so I half expected one of her siblings might have taken her in, and there she’d be on some census or other, ‘Mary Leah, sister’. But there’s been no sign.
Basically, we’ve four options: she married, she stayed single, she emigrated, or she died. I’d rather not contemplate the last scenario just yet, so let’s dive in and see how many Mary Leahs we’re dealing with.
First, though, I should check her birth year from the census is actually correct. I look for a Mary Leah born in Lancashire, 1875 +/-two years, and find quite a collection if we count the Mary Anns and Mary Ellens too. But I’m pretty sure our Mary is plain Mary, and the two likeliest matches are in Chorlton RD: 1873 and 1874. Findmypast’s transcripts helpfully include the mother’s maiden name, so yes, 1873 it is – December quarter, Mary Leah, mother’s maiden name Rowbotham. Ah, so Mary was actually seven-and-a-half on the 1881 Census, not six. That might be useful.