In the last few days I have been sidetracked from my own research by a little mystery concerning someone who was only indirectly of interest to me, genealogically speaking.
I had begun to look for the birth of Emma Mellish who had married my paternal grandfather's 2nd cousin, Hermann Renelt. Because I couldn't find what I was looking for (it transpired that Emma's name had been entered as Milesh in the Birth Index!) I started tracing Emma's family, knowing from her marriage registration that her father was Alexander Thomas Mellish, Alexander, it turned out, had married a woman named Mary Ann Snarey, born in Stamford, Lincolnshire in 1853.
However, when I did find Emma's entry in the Birth Registration Index at the GRO site I found that her mother's maiden name was given as Mears, as it was for some of her siblings who I had found in the 1851 Census. I turned to the Public Member Trees on Ancestry to see if anyone else was researching this family. Now that I had found Emma Mellish's Birth Registration entry I wasn't too bothered about finding out more about her family, she being somewhat on the periphery of my tree, but I was curious about the discrepancy in the names. I found a tree which seemed to have quite a lot of information and the Owner had recently logged in to Ancestry so I sent a message, detailing my interest in the family and asking if the person could shed any light on the little mystery.
The tree Owner responded very promptly and told me a lot about Mary Ann, who had apparently co-habited and produced children with a Robert Mears some time after her marriage to Ocatavius. She appeared in several Censuses with Robert and the various children, all of whom were described as Son or Daughter and bore the surname Mears. The Owner rather got the impression that "someone was trying to hide something" as there was such variation in the listed birthplaces of the children. Robert himself was shown as being born in the USA on one Census and in Lincolnshire on another!
So, no conclusion so far. I said I would look into it a bit more as I was really intrigued and I did spend several hours scouring various websites but was not able to come up with a satisfactory explanation. The Ancestry tree Owner had mentioned that both the names Sneary and Mears appeared on the Marriage Register entry for Alexander Mellish and Mary Ann, so rather belatedly I went back for another look because I hadn't noticed this before and thought it just said "Mary Ann Snarey."
It turned out that the two names appeared among the Witnesses and indeed this just added to the mystery! On the first line had been written "Octavius Snarey", but this was crossed out and "Robert Mears" written above with an undecipherable "squiggle" prefacing it. On the line below was written originally "Emma Snarey" but "Snarey" was crossed out and Mears written instead, apparently by the same hand as had written "Robert Mears." Who was Emma Snarey/Mears? I wondered. I looked at more Censuses and discovered that was listed in 1881 as a daughter-in-law of Robert Mears, apparently the wife of Robert Mears junior, but I have not found a Marriage record.
I started looking again - and in vain - for the death of Octavius and it suddenly hit me what must - I am sure - be the explanation. I believe that Octavius Snarey and Robert Mears were one and the same person. This would account for the Witnesses entry in the Marriage Register entry and also explains the apparent disappearance of Octavius.
I am reminded of the case of my 3rd Great Grandfather, whose marriage record I couldn't find for many years. I knew him only as Joseph Pitt, but then I found the Marriage Register entry of his 12th and last child and she named her father as Joseph Dineage Pitt. Dineage? Where did that come from? I then discovered he had been Joseph Dinnage when he married and Joseph Dinnage or Dineage when each of his first 10 children had been baptized, but become Joseph Pitt with the last 2.
They don't make it easy, do they?!
No comments:
Post a Comment