Family Historian User Group

Could somebody please help me find my great grandmother's birth & marriage. She is recorded in the Census returns for 1871 to 1901 as set out below.

1871 Name; Ellen Curtis aged 30. Where born. London City, Middlesex, England. Civil parish. St Thomas, County/Island, Wiltshire. Country, England. Registration district, Alderbury. Sub-registration district, Salisbury. Her husband was William Curtis born 20 Sep 1842 in Hornchurch, Essex. Occupation: Labourer. (Class: RG10; Piece; 1953. Folio; 46. Page 22)

1881 Name; Ellen Curtis aged 42. Where born. Middlesex, England. Civil parish. Tonbridge, County/Island, Kent. Country, England. Street Address; 20 Victoria Rd. Marital Status, Married. Occupation; General Labourer Wife. Registration district, Tunbridge. Sub registration district, Tunbridge Wells. Husband as above William Curtis aged 39, occupation; Labourer. (Class: RG11; Piece; 914. Folio: 83, Page 25).

1891 Name; Ellen Curtis aged 49. Birth Place. London, England. Civil parish. Tunbridge, Residence Place; Tonbridge, Tunbridge, Kent, England. Sub registration district, Tunbridge. Husband as above William Curtis aged 48, occupation; Dealer. (Class: RG12; Piece: 681, Folio: 81, Page 2)

1901 Name; Ellen Curtis aged 59. Birth Place. Marylebone, Middlesex, England. Civil parish. Tonbridge. Ecclesiastical parish. St Stephens. Town. Tonbridge. County/Island, Kent. Country, England. Registration district. Tonbridge. Sub-registration district, Tonbridge. Husband as above William Curtis aged 59, occupation; General Dealer. (Class: RG13; Piece: 757; Folio: 124; Page: 10)

Ellen Curtis (nee Allen) died 28 November 1909 in Tonbridge aged 67. Ellen & William's children were William Curtis born about 1868 in Droxford, Hampshire (Not found his birth), Albert Curtis born 1 Feb 1871 in Salisbury, Wiltshire (Mothers Maiden Name: Allen), James Curtis born 11 Jan 1873 in Salisbury, Wiltshire (Mothers Maiden Name: Allen), Emily Curtis born 3 Jan 1875 in Salisbury, Wiltshire (Mothers Maiden Name: Allen) & Mabel Florence Curtis born 17 Nov 1878 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent (Mothers Maiden Name: Allen).

Any help & advice to find Ellen's marriage to William and her birth would be gratefully received. Any help to find my grandfather William Curtis c1868 birth information would be most welcomed.

Brian C

This is a tough one. One possibility is that William Curtis was Ellen's second husband. If that were the case, she would have been married under her first husband's surname, not under her maiden name of Allen. So it's worth checking out any other marriages of a William Curtis to an Ellen with any surname.

Bear in mind, also, that 'Ellen' sometimes turns up as 'Eleanor' or 'Helen'.

Another possibility is that they were pretending to be husband and wife as early as 1871 but they didn't actually marry until later. There was a marriage of a William Curtis to either Harriett Woollett or Ellen ALLIN (note spelling) in Q3 1876 in Gravesend district, Kent. (You know they were in Kent by the late 1870s when their daughter Mabel was born). Unfortunately you can't tell from the index whether he married Harriett or Ellen.

In that scenario their eldest son William might have been registered with his mother’s name, so check out various William Allen births in Hampshire around 1868.

Hello Lorna.

Thank you for your reply, I agree with you this is a tough one. I have been trying to find Ellen's birth & marriage for some time without any success. I have previously searched for William Curtis's marriage in Essex, Hampshire & Wiltshire from 1861-1870 and not found him, I will set some time aside and look through FreeBMD again in case I have missed a William & Ellen, Eleanor or Helen.

I did buy the Gravesend marriage but the parents & occupations did not match with the census returns, also four of their children were living in Salisbury the year before this marriage, there last child Mabel Florence was born in Tunbridge Wells on 17 Nov 1878. The younger children would have been, William aged 8, Albert aged 5, James 3 & Emily aged 1. I know that people moved around quite a bit but have four children to look after seems strange.

I will keep looking to see if there are any William Allen's between his father's 1861-1870 census returns to see if there are any probable births that could fit into my understanding/knowledge of where they lived.

Kind regards

Brian C

Brian, it would be helpful to let us know about likely looking entries that you have already researched and discounted.
Like the Gravesend 1876 marriage that Lorna found but you had already researched.
That will avoid us wasting time barking up the same wrong trees.

Hi Brian,
This will probably not help in tracing the records you are looking for, but may explain why you can't find them. According to 'Ancestral Trails' by Mark Herber,
"The [registration system] was thought to be effective for the registration of marriages. However, Foster reveals defects in the GRO indexes of 19th-century marriages, due mainly to errors by clerks who compiled the national indexes from copies of registers submitted by the clergy. They omitted to copy some marriages into the national index (perhaps 5% of marriages in some years)......Researchers who cannot find a marriage in the GRO indexes will....have to search indexes at superintendent registrar's offices."
"Many births were also not recorded during the early years of civil registration. Parents were only legally obliged to inform a registrar of the details of a birth if the registrar demanded them. It is estimated that in some parts of England (particularly Surrey, Sussex, Essex, Shropshire and Middlesex), up to 15% of births were not registered between 1837 and 1875. Many people did not know about the law, or thought that a child's baptism, recorded in a church register, was a legal alternative to registration."
Geoff

Have you tried this one?
Ellen Allen 1842
Registration Quarter: Apr-May-Jun
Registration district: Whitechapel
Volume: 2
Page: 581

Cheers, Jay