Edwards & Stokes Families in Lincolnshire

Tracking the family tree through the censuses a lot of people seemed to go to, or end up in Lincolnshire.  Some of their descendants are still there to this day!  I've tried to sort them all out and draw up a mini tree for the Lincolnshire roots, but it seems to have a pivotal point of my great-great-great-grandparents John and Jane Stokes. Here's what I've made of the family tree for Lincolnshire at the moment:

John and Jane had two sons who showed up in Lincolnshire in the Censuses:

• William Stokes 1838-1926
• Alfred Fineden Stokes 1836-1906(?)

But, they seem to have also taken with them some of their nephews, their sisters' children:

• John Willmot 1845-
• George Stokes/Edwards 1845-1904
• William Edwards 1852-1888(?)
• David Edwards 1862-1949

So, in total, that's six of them relocating to Lincolnshire either temporarily or permanently.  Trying to put them into date order of settlement, I came up with the following:

• 1861: William Stokes (b. 1838) first appeared in the 1861 Census in Lincolnshire, 1 mile from Grayingham.  His descendants ended up settling in Scotter, where the village website has a lot of information about the family.
• 1861: Alfred Stokes (b. 1836) first appeared in the 1861 Census in Grayingham, Lincolnshire. He moved about a lot, moved away, then moved back - his grandson was killed in action in WW1, on 31 July 1917 at Ypres with the Lincolnshire Regiment.  At the moment, I think he and his wife went with their daughter to Northamptonshire in their dotage, dying in Northamptonshire - after which time the daughter and family returned to the Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire border.
• 1861: John Willmot (b. 1845) at Grayingham, Lincolnshire . Aged 16, the Census has him down as 14.  He's a groom. After this, John returned to his home turf, where he married. After that there's a possibility he went to Canada, which I'll follow up at some point. 
• 1876: William (b. 1852) was in the 1881 Census, in Scunthorpe, but I think he married in 1876 in Glanford Brigg. I believe he probably spent the rest of his life in the Scunthorpe area.
• 1881: George Stokes/Edwards (b. 1845) might be the one in the 1881 Census in Spalding prison!  This is tricky as George was born out of wedlock, but seems to have adopted the same family name as the rest of them - although I could just be a bit wrong here.  Although the Census says the prisoner is aged 32, George'd have been closer to 37 at the time.  I looked into this a little more and it seems he was simply being held for 2-3 days until a court case where he'd passed forged coins in pubs and been caught.  This is called "uttering currency". Naughty boy! It is possible there's another George. Sometimes some names are hard to trace and/or too common to really know you've got it right.
  Anyway - it turns out that I think George Stokes might turn out to be the most unexpected/exciting one in the tree (well, a bit of a bad boy), but I don't want to sully his name until I've at least got my audit trail in place.  He married his brother's wife's sister.  This was one of my quests "two brothers married two sisters in Donington", but it turned out to be two half brothers married two sisters, one in Donington and the other one nearby (but I've got to find that marriage yet!).  George Stokes married Mary Susanah Garner Crampton in 1890 in the Glanford Brigg Registration District.  Mary Susan, as the name shows up in FreeBMD is the older sister of Ann Crampton who married David Edwards.  And there's a twist .... naughty George was 20 years older than Mary!  But, I've got to double check all this as I've only just "discovered" it all. 
• 1887: David Edwards (b. 1862) appeared at Harpswell in 1891, aged 28. A waggoner with a wife/children.  Their first born appears to have been born in Donington in 1888, so he must've been in the area since at least 1887. He stayed and raised a family, living in the same cottage in Broughton for nearly 50 years! David and his wife Ann raised a large family in Broughton, who are probably still there today!

So, of the six family members that headed East from Cambridgeshire to Lincolnshire, only one "returned home".
The family mystery here is that I've got a snippet of "two brothers married two sisters, at Donington" - and, so far, I've not nailed that.  I need to see a lot of parish records to work out who it was.  It's probably David/Ann, but I need to get to the bottom of that snippet and family mystery at some point.

So, that's it so far.  When you build your tree you find you make assumptions and pencil ideas into the tree - and it might be some time before you get a "lucky lead" .... but you can't just have "dead certs" on the tree or it'd look a bit bleak and empty!

Where Did Your Family Come From?

When you start your family tree you think you know where your family comes from.  If asked "where did your family come from?" you'll have an answer, the answer you believe, but dig down a few generations and you might be surprised.

My journey started by looking at my mother's ancestors.  She had been brought up in the village of Chesterton, Cambridgeshire - and I expected to find everybody there, but I was surprised.  Her grandmother had come from the villages of Caldecote, Cambridgeshire and Bourn, Cambridgeshire.  Going up another two generations and then looking at where everybody had come from and gone to, the net started to really widen.

My GGG-grandmother came from Upton, Huntingdonshire - unfortunately this is a small parish with few records transcribed and available online, so I was a little stuck there.

I guess my curiosity was really piqued when I saw that my GG-grandmother had gone into prison, for abandoning her family - and I started with the question of why she'd have done that.  Where were her siblings, her aunts/uncles and cousins, that they weren't in a position to help.  Of course, that sets aside the issue of personality, there's always the chance that she was simply unlikeable!  I'm sure we've all got family we'd rather avoid and never speak to - imagine if they turned up on your doorstep wanting to move in!

In the latter half of the 1800s Caldecote was depopulating - people first moved into the village as the railway was built through the area and then for the coprolite digging work (that's dinosaur poo) - and when that industry started to die people had to move away.

A lot of my GG-grandmother's siblings and uncles had migrated to Lincolnshire, to Norfolk, some to Suffolk - and a few towards London.  Others had moved closer to the Huntingdon and St Ives areas.

Then I was obsessed with finding out where everybody went and what happened to them.

My great-grandmother moved to Cambridge, as did three of her sisters, so they were together in the same area from about 1890 onwards.  But I found two brothers who moved to Lincolnshire - and then their sister's lads in the next generation also moved out that way - so there was a group of Stokes' and Edwards' in Lincolnshire that would've had associations and ties with each other.

As the net gets wider, you find people who simply "disappeared" - this is mostly due to the cost of finding/proving them.  e.g. if you have, say, 3 deaths it COULD have been a distant, 2nd cousin, 3x removed, then you're not going to invest £10 for each of three death certificates just to see IF any of them are your man!  So, the chart gets marked "disappeared" - and, who knows, one day their descendants will have done the research and published the answers!

Right now my main focus is on the lot that moved to Lincolnshire and I've a family mystery to solve there as I am trying to find "two brothers who married two sisters" - I'll find them one day!

Alfred William Blow 1896-1917

Alfred William Blow is one of the men on my family tree that died in WW1.  Looking at the reasons I started this blog and gave it the name is has, he's a descendent of the Finding family.  He would appear to be the great-great-grandson of Thomas and Mary Finding.

Alfred William Blow as born in 1896 at Nocton Heath, Lincolnshire.  He was the son of Robert Blow and Lydia Elizabeth Blow.  Robert & Lydia Elizabeth (nee Stokes) moved about a little bit after their marriage.  Between 1894 and 1905 they had produced 7 living children.  Alfred was named after his grandfather, Alfred Stokes. As for his middle name of William, that's fairly common in the family tree - and his mother had a brother called William who died aged 11 weeks, then another brother named Willie.  So he was most likely named after Willie, his uncle.

Some time between 1896 and 1898 they moved to Quadring Fen, which is where they were for the 1901 Census.  In 1902 they were living in Beesley, Lincolnshire, then they moved again, some time between 1903-1906, to Northamptonshire.

By the time Alfred was 10 he'd certainly had many addresses!  His father was a farm cattleman, so was probably working year-to-year on jobs gained from Hiring Fairs, which is how a lot of Agricultural Workers were hired.

Alfred was a Private in the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment.  His service number appears as two variations (I won't pretend to understand war records!)  4024 and 40211 are the numbers I've found from various websites.  I think 40211 is the "proper number".

Alfred died on 31 July 1917, aged just 21 and is commemorated at Ypres on the Menin Gate Memorial. Websites that mention Alfred include:

• The Nottinghamshire website gives his parents address at East Kirkby at that time: "He was the son of Robert and Lydia Elizabeth Blow of 77 Prospect Street East Kirkby Nottinghamshire." http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/rollofhonour/People/Details/29106
• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission gives Alfred's age as 21 and his service number as 40211.  http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/ casualty/928248/ 
• The local Lincolnshire LincsToThePast website also gives Alfred a mention: Killed in Action. Service number 40211.  "Notes: Plaque in St. Georges Memorial Church, Ypres; born 1896, Nocton". http://www.lincstothepast.com/ PersonDetails.aspx?objectid=1539700 

While we're used to seeing War Memorials - it appears that Alfred is not commemorated on any local war memorials.  I have tried to find his medal cards etc and his attestation papers, showing the addresses he might've been using, but he must be one of those soldiers whose papers were burnt.  Poor Alfred.

There really is little evidence Alfred existed.  I do hope his siblings' relatives search for him one day and have some photos.  He deserves more/better and to be remembered more fittingly.  Somebody out there will have Alfred's Death Penny :(

What is Alfred's relationship to me?  That's a tough one .... so here we go:

Alfred is my Great-great-great-grandmother's, brother's, grandson. :)
Or, Alfred and I share the same great-great-great-great-grandparents.
There'll be a name for that.  We are 2nd cousins 3 times removed.

At the time of his death his grandparents had died, so one might think that my part of the family never got to hear the news, but there were other cousins etc in the area too, so there's a small chance our branch did know.  I'll have to sit and work out the likelihood of that one day!  Certainly my great-great-grandmother's brothers were in the area too.

2nd Lincolnshire Battalion War Diary
Lincolnshire Archives have the war diary of the 2nd Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment.  But there are other sources out there for those motivated enough to want to read more.  Whether somebody's mentioned in a diary will depend on a lot of factors, such as their ranking within the battalion and how many died that day.  If, say, 100 were killed, then they'd not be named... but, if they were the only death in an otherwise fairly mundane day, then a full description might be furnished, so War Diaries are hit and miss affairs for details.

The War Diary of the 2nd Lincolnshire Regiment is also available to read at the National Archives in London (for free), or via a downloadable file online, for a cost of £3.45, the file is over 83MB in size. http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7352498

Understanding the War, battalions, battles and movements is quite a major undertaking, it's not as simple as looking up a name in a search box.  I am not currently up to the challenge of discovering Alfred's journey through the war to his final resting place.

A quick look indicates to me that Alfred might've died on the first day of the Battle of Pilckem Ridge, which the 2nd Battalion seem to have fought from 31 July to 2 August. If I am reading it correctly, the whole of D Company died, so he might've been one of those!

As ever: E&OE

Alfred Fineden Stokes 1836-1906

Alfred Fineden Stokes was born in 1836 and baptised on 31 January 1836 at Caldecote, Cambridgeshire. Son of John Stokes and Jane Stokes.  This is on LDS Film Number 1040424.

I am not sure where his middle name comes from, but my first guess is that they tried to use his mother's maiden name of Finding in his name and it's just been either misheard or mistranscribed.

As a quick overview, I believe he was in the following locations so far:

1836: Christened, Caldecote
1841 Caldecote (5)
1851 Childerley (15)?
1861 Census Grayingham, Lincs? (25)

1863: Married, Jane Wilson
1865: _dau Lydia Elizabeth born
1867: _son John born
1869: _son William born/died
1871: _dau Mary Jane born
1871 Census Dry Drayton (35)
1881 Census missing
1891 Census missing
1892 _dau Lydia married?
1901 Census Dalby Lincs? (65)

1906 Died Thrapston?

He certainly seems to have moved about a bit, but not far afield overall.  These were very changeable times, with the village of Caldecote almost emptying as people emigrated and left for other counties and towns to look for work.  Alfred found work fairly locally, this might have been through wishing to stay close to his roots, or no desire to go dragging a family across the country!

1851 Census: In 1851 he seems to be just a mile up the road from home, working on a farm.
1861 Census: In 1861 he appears to be all the way over in Grayingham, Lincolnshire.  Quite a few family members have been to Lincolnshire in the past, maybe he's the first?  He'd have probably been hired as an Agricultural Labourer at a Hiring Fair.  His brother William is in Grayingham in 1901, so the family kept returning to the area. In 1861 Alfred was a boarder in the house of Mary Sleightholme.  Alfred was a shepherd and foreman. He was 25 and from Caldecote, Cambridgeshire. Mary Sleightholme was a 57 year old farmer of 250 acres employing two staff. Looking into this a little more, it appears the address would've been Grayingham Grange and she also employed John Wilmott from Dry Drayton in 1861, so it looks at first glance as if Alfred and his local chum John would've gone East together to work on this farm - but when you dig deeper you discover that John Wilmott is the son of Alfred's sister Susannah and also that Alfred's brother William was 1 mile up the road.  So this is two uncles and a nephew working together in Lincolnshire:  William aged 21, Alfred aged 25 and John aged 16 (although the census says 14)

1863: Alfred appears to have married a Jane Wilson.  Jane Wilson is quite a common name, indeed, Alfred's own niece BECAME a Jane Wilson in 1866.  Common names can lead to confusion as there did seem to be a name shortage back in the 1700-1800s!  This marriage was on 15 November 1863 at St Mary & All Angels, Caldecote, Cambridge.  This information is from the LDS website, Film Number 1040424.  Alfred is listed as a bachelor of Caldecote, son of John Stokes.  He married Jane Wilson, spinster, daughter of Jeremiah Wilson.
1871 Census: Alfred and family have settled in Dry Drayton.  By this date they have daughter Lydia Elizabeth Stokes, aged 6; John Stokes, aged 4; Mary Jane Stokes, a new born. They had also had a son, William, who was born and died in 1869, so wouldn't show up in the Census.
1881 Census: I still haven't found him!
1891 Census: Still missing! I've a feeling he might've been in Lincolnshire though, possibly close to Spilsby as there's a possibility his daughter married in 1892 in Spilsby, but I've yet to see enough evidence to prove this.

1901 Census: Alfred and his wife pop up again in Lincolnshire, in Dalby, Lincolnshire.  There's been some mistranscrition on the LDS site as it shows a birthplace of Daldcot and a wife of Jenne from Bourne (the Bourn in Cambridgeshire has no "e", but enumerators in Lincolnshire will have been used to the Bourne, Lincolnshire spelling with an "e" at the end) - but it's surely him.  Aged 65, Alfred Stokes is an engine driver on a farm, living at Dalby Road, Dalby.

1906 Dies?: I believe Alfred Finden Stokes died in 1906, with his name being spelt Alfred Finding Stokes - that middle name being a nod back to his mother's maiden name.  The death recorded a long way from Lincolnshire though, Thrapston, Northamptonshire.  Aged 70, the age matches.  The name is too much of a coincidence to be ignored.... but I've yet to actually 'prove' it's the same chap.  A copy of the death certificate would nail it, for about £10, but Alfred is a "minor" leaf on my tree, so the expense isn't warranted.
I suspect he and his wife moved in with one of their children at some point.

I believe his wife Jane was in the 1911 Census, at  Woodford, Northamptonshire and died there in 1915.

Family In Lincolnshire

When you start doing your family tree you think you know where you came from - and can be surprised to discover that you're really only au-fait with what the last 2-3 generations have done and if you come from one area you might think they've lived there forever!

Having found an ancestor, you'll naturally want to then fill in the gaps of their siblings. Who were their brothers? Who where their sisters?  Then, "Where did they go then?"  If you just trace a single line upwards then your job is made harder because you've no clues, no "reason" why they do some things, or where they go to.

If you simultaneously track, trace and stalk all their siblings and families, you start to get a better overall family picture.

I've found that at least two of my GG-grandmother's brothers took their families off to Lincolnshire.  When you cross a border, you then have to "start from scratch" in compiling your list of sources and resources for that county as every county's different.  Maybe they'll have better records, maybe not!  It's a whole new challenge.

I found the 50th wedding anniversary of one of my GG-gm's brothers was reported in the local newspapers.  They'd sent out a journalist and a photographer, so I've now got a great article that gives a bit more information about their lives.  You get details you'd have not gained by any other method, which is great, except it's just opened up a new query for me as the wife said that "two brothers married two sisters" - and, as the records in that county aren't as accessible in the home county, I'm struggling to find out who this second couple are.

While I've certainly got two brothers also in the county, with wives, I can't tie those wives back to the 50th anniversary woman!  Also, I can't be sure if she was talking of herself, or maybe the other two!  I'll solve it one day.