I love receiving snail-mail. The clunk of the letterbox outside the front door as the mailman drops in something unknown and flops the metal flap back over it. The feel of envelopes, the stamps, the possibilities.
A dozen years ago or so, I received a large brown envelope from
Dudley, County of Worcester, England, with FIVE certificates: 3 labelled "Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth", 2 labelled "Certified Copy of an Entry of Marriage." What wonderful mail indeed! However, I was retiring at the time, going into hospital for surgery, and didn't really look at them beyond confirming the contents of that big brown envelope. Today as I wondered what next to work on in my family tree, I finally scanned each of those five documents. And in scanning, I looked in detail at the records. They now are all scanned, labelled, and filed appropriately. My desk is almost totally clear of genealogy paperwork right now! Amazing.
Here is a copy of my paternal line Greatgrandmother's birth record, with interesting information about her parents and her life.
(I made it X-large so that you could read more details.)
When I teach Introduction to Genealogy classes for beginners, I always tease people by saying
"There are at least 19 clues or questions to ask, on every document you find!"... because I've found that beginners only see two or three, and think they're done looking:
"Yes, there's the parents and birthdate. Done." Of course, I know I still have much research to do with these certificates in hand.
This document is very easy to read, with careful calligraphic writing. We have her address (born at home) as
Northfield Road, Netherton, Dudley, in the County of Worcester. I had to look up more about the relationship of Netherton and Dudley to understand why there are two towns listed as if they were separate ones, in Worcestershire. More to learn. The number in the first column "448" is the number of the registration, not the house number, by the way.
There is her father's name
Thomas Whitehouse. I do wish he had a more interesting name, like Linus or Beauregard, or something quite out of the ordinary. But my ancestor men were good solid folk with plain names: Thomas, George, William, John, James, Henry.
But then there is her mother's name, written as:
Sarah Whitehouse late Shutt, formerly Price. Here we see that Sarah's maiden name is
PRICE. And she was previously married, to a gentleman, surname of
Shutt. I have a few clues to indicate his name was Thomas Shutt, and they were married only 1-2 years at most. However, I haven't been able to confirm this yet - I have a list of more records to order: another marriage certificate, his death record, plus more research still to do.
We have the father's occupation:
"Laborer at an Ironwork". There is a reason this area was once termed the
Black Midlands, due to the smoke/soot in the air which landed on the ground, trees, houses, people and - I am sure - on the laundry put outside to dry. I'm trying to think how anyone kept clean when they worked such difficult dirty jobs as iron works jobs, or coal mining, and such. I thought I would be able to see which ironworks Thomas might have worked at. I assumed I'd find something quite specific about an
Ironworks foundry near Netherton, or near Northfield Road. I was able to find the following on Wikipedia [scroll down on the page]:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Iron_Company :
Netherton[edit]
The 'old ironworks' at Netherton (with two furnaces) were acquired from Attwood in 1825 as part of the Corngreaves transaction. The company remained in possession until c1852 when the works were sold to Noah Hingley & Sons. The company is also known to have worked coal mines here.
Brierley Hill, Dudley Wood and Netherton were all held under lease from the Dudley estate.
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Back to those certificates above: Were you able to read the Registration date? and the informant?
Sarah made her mark
X The Mark of Sarah Whitehouse Mother, Northfield road, Netherton/Dudley, on the
Fifteenth December 1858. This date is about 5 weeks after the birth of their daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Whitehouse. And I'm making an assumption that my greatgrandmother went to the office to register the birth herself, as her husband, Thomas, had to work.
Sarah would need to bundle up the baby plus her 5 year old stepdaughter against the December cold and wet, and walk to the office where the birth needed to be registered. Then back they would have to go home again. I would like to find out how she might have gotten to the Dudley Registration office. Surely someone would have given her a lift... was there a railroad? a cart? I'm abysmally ignorant about transportation options in the 1850s in England villages! I also wonder if it mattered to her that she was not able to write her name on the birth registration form at the office. I know so little about her.
I went back to look again at the 1856 marriage record for Thomas Whitehouse and Sarah Shutt, finding her father's name as John Price, Miner. There were
extensive coal mines in and around this area, so that is likely what he did. Thomas' father was noted as Joseph Whitehouse (Dead), occupation, Nailer. Netherton was known as
THE place for nailmaking, from the 1600s onwards into the early-mid 1800s. Also on the marriage record, Thomas is listed as a Widower, occupation "Furnace Man". I have begun to search for his first wife, whom I believe was also named Sarah, 5 years younger than him.
I first found the records of a Thomas marrying a Sarah, and a Sarah marrying a Thomas for both first and second marriages an interesting symmetry. Perhaps not so unusual, as those were quite common names in this time. Eventually I believe I found the most likely pair: Thomas WHITEHOUSE marrying Elizabeth [no surname listed].
I have a few photos of my greatgrandmother, Sarah Elizabeth WHITEHOUSE... she married a George BUNN, and they soon moved up to Barrow-in-Furness where iron foundries and ship-building opportunities abounded. There are so many Bunn and Whitehouse families in Netherton that if you had a stone for each one, you could build a home with them! Several of the Bunn and Whitehouse individuals in my tree were born in
Windmill End and in Darby Hand (Darby End), both tiny neighbourhoods near to Netherton.
Any and all BUNN& WHITEHOUSE relatives - please get in touch and I'm happy to email you the copy of any of the Bunn and Whitehouse certificates I have received to date. And if you have additional details I'd be thrilled to receive them!! (contact information, scroll below)
Here's the postcard front, of my grandfather, with something cylindrical in his right hand. It reminds me of a small recorder for some reason, but I simply can't see it clearly. Perhaps it's a cigar! Any other ideas, readers?
And here's the back side of the postcard: post office marked as November 2nd, 1913. The stamp is quite clear and is a 1-cent stamp! It is addressed to my grandmother, Marguerite, at home in Vancouver:
