We Are Related to the Maltbys

"We're related to the Maltbys" is something I can remember my mum saying when I was growing up.  Mum'd say that about quite a few names.  When she heard a name, or saw it in the newspapers, she'd pipe up "We're related to....." - and a lot of these snippets became family mysteries to solve when I started looking into my family tree.

And finally I FOUND the connection!  I now know precisely who the Maltbys were and who I was related to and how!

Martha Ann Maltby (1869-1951) was my great-grandmother's sister.  My mum was brought up by her "granny" - and "granny" was the sister of Martha Ann Maltby, so mum'll have grown up in a household where the two sisters were visiting each other and their names were spoken of.  Indeed, my mum told my cousin (who started our tree) that she remembered visiting Martha Ann Maltby at her house.

So that's another small quest satisfied.  I now know who the Maltbys were and how I was related.

Martha Ann Maltby married Henry Maltby in November 1891, they then had five children Olive Annie Maltby, Bertram/Bertie Maltby, Lilian Rose Maltby and, finally, the twins, Elsie May Maltby and Henry Henry Maltby. Unfortunately, there was a nasty accident with a fire when the twins were just a few months old and Elsie May Maltby was burnt when her cot caught fire, she died from her injuries in 1901.  Just five years later Bertie died of illness, aged just 12.  Martha Ann Maltby was then left with just three children, who all made it into adulthood and had families of their own.

Martha and "granny" were two of four sisters who moved to Cambridge in the 1890s and settled, having moved into town from the villages of Bourn, Caldecote and Kingston.  By ~1894 all four of them (and their mother) were living at various addresses in Cambridge until they settled down and married.  They then all raised their families and stayed put.

In the 1901 Census, the four sisters were living in the Newmarket Road/East Road areas.  Their mother was absent in the 1901 Census as she was over at Dry Drayton looking after her elderly widowed uncle, probably until his death in 1903.  It looks as if Martha Ann was the first to settle, having married in 1891, giving the rest a destination to go to when they were looking to move.  It looks like she was our family's "first settler", although there is another tie in the tree to the Newmarket Road area, with the Hayhoe family.  I've still to sit down and work out the dates/locations of everybody to work out "who moved first".  Martha Ann was certainly the first to marry of the sisters, although one was "living over the brush" it seems.

As for Henry Maltby, the twin whose sister was tragically lost so soon, he went on to live a very long life, dying in 1997 aged 97!  Go Henry!

My relationship to the children of Martha Ann Maltby is:  1st cousins twice removed.
I am the Great Grand niece of Martha Ann.
My great-great grandmother is the mother of Martha.

It's all very confusing terminology isn't it!