The General Register Office has recently made available
some additional information on the deaths and birth indexes. Previously, the
microfilmed versions did not contain an age at the time of death prior to 1868
or a mother’s maiden name on births prior to September quarter 1911. The GRO
now have a searchable database that fills these gaps.
For me this means re-working the births and deaths that
fall within these dates. The deaths weren’t too onerous, I had just over a
thousand of them, and even though the age at death was advertised as being in
years and some of them were clearly in months, it wasn’t a big job. I only
found one record that I had wrong, so I felt very pleased with myself about
that. The births are a much bigger task, 5,393 of them, so I’m currently
working through them as a ‘back burner’ project. When I get time in-between
other research, I spend an hour or so whittling them down. I’m down to about
3,500 at the moment.
In addition, the birth indexes now show the full range of
forenames where previously initials had sometimes been inserted. This extra
information from the GRO is throwing up some interesting research insights. Albert
Watts (1880-) is my second cousin three times removed on my mother’s side. His
parents were Nathan Watts (1830-1898) and Elizabeth Randall (1840-1916) and I
had his birth index record - Albert Watts, volume 3b, page 551, Mar quarter
1880, Newmarket district; mother's maiden name Randall. The 1881 and 1891
census showed him at home with his parents at Bottisham Lode in Cambridgeshire
where he was born. I haven’t located Albert in the 1901 census, but I’ve found
him in 1911:
1911 RG 78, RG 14 PN 9118, registration district (RD)
Cambridge, sub district (SD) St Andrew the Less, enumeration district (ED)
18, schedule number (SN) 26
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Albert Watts
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Head
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31
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Mar
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Grocery
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Lode, CAM
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Amy Watts
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Wife
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30
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Mar
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Assisting in business
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Haverfordwest, PEM
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Edna Watts
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Daur
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8
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Ware, HRT
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Married 9 years, 1 child, 1 living, 0 dead
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This has given me his wife and daughter’s names and
approximate birth years and locations. I also have an approximate marriage
year. However, to date I had been unable to locate any marriage of Albert Watts
to an Amy around 1902 or birth of an Edna Watts around 1903. The best fit that
I had so far found for Edna was a Constance Frances E Watts born in 1903 at
Ware. I was hoping that the E was for Edna and that the GRO website would prove
this one way or another.
Assuming the birth locations to be correct I searched the
GRO website for any female WATTS in the Ware district in 1903 plus or minus 1
year and found:
WATTS, Constance Frances Edna mmn BOWLER GRO Reference:
1903 M Quarter in WARE Volume 03A Page 680
Eureka! This also gave me Amy’s surname and a better
chance of finding the marriage. A search of the FreeBMD website for the marriage
of Albert Watts to someone with a surname of Bowler between 1901 and 1902 found
the following record:
Marriages Sep 1901 Greenwich 01D 2029
BOWLER Florence Maria A
HILL Sarah Elizabeth
RICE Richard Edward
WATTS Albert
So, next I had to hope that the A in Florence Maria A
Bowler was Amy. A search of the GRO website for a female BOWLER in the Haverfordwest
district in 1880 plus or minus a year turned up:
BOWLER, Florence Maria Amy mmn DARKER GRO Reference: 1880
S Quarter in HAVERFORDWEST Volume 11A
Page 879
Case solved. Thank you GRO.
