DEAR PAUL

This month, Paul Chiddicks presents a ‘gone but not forgotten’ theme, as he takes a look at some unusual family headstones that reveal more details than you might expect…

Paul Chiddicks

We start with the answer to the coded message sent by Forensic Genealogist ‘Morton Farrier’ in April’s edition of ‘Dear Paul’. Did you manage to break Morton’s code? If not, the answer to the puzzle set by Morton is:

MORTON COME QUICK MY LIFE IS IN DANGER P

Author Nathan Dylan Goodwin, who writes the wonderful Morton Farrier series of books, has very generously donated a signed copy of one of his books, to the first two code breakers who successfully solved his puzzle and our lucky winners are: Phil Isherwood and Linda Cripps. Congratulations to you both. I’m sure Bletchley Park will be in touch sometime soon! If you enjoy a great read with a genealogical twist then I can highly recommend Nathan’s books: www. nathandylangoodwin.com

Gravestone clues

When we’re researching our family histories, we spend a lot of time looking at the key sources.

We track down records of our ancestors’ births, marriages and deaths, we try to find them on census returns and we look for their wills. We wouldn’t necessarily consider a gravestone as containing the vital clues that could help us break through a brick wall, but here are a few examples that might make you reconsider and look a little more closely at your ancestors’ graves.

Janet Freeman offered some good advice when checking gravestones, after visiting Sowerby Bridge municipal cemetery, trying to unravel clues on family headstones. Janet’s advice is to remember to check the wives’ maiden names on the headstones. Had she taken her own advice, she would have realised that buried in three neighbouring graves were three sisters:

• In the first grave were James and Hannah Bedford (née Helm) and their son-in-law and daughter William and Martha Crossley (née Bedford).

• In the second were Mary Jane Riley (née Bedford) and three of her children.

• The last grave contained Albert and Alice Wood (née Bedford).

Three sisters that might have gone unnoticed had Janet not revisited to check on the family names. Janet also found, in the same cemetery, a family grave that contained a wealth of information that even conventional documents might not have been able to reveal.

Without all the additional information contained on the headstone, Janet might not have been able to piece together all the relevant family connections.

Not only that, the grave also contained the details of the last house the deceased lived in!

The grave concerned contains James Gaskell (1837-78) and his wife Mary Alice (1839-1919).

Mary Alice’s maiden name was Wylde, and she remarried six years after James’s death to widower John William Helm (1833-1909). You will also notice that Mary Ann Poskett, a servant, is buried in the same grave. She served the Wylde family for 38 years.