What happened to my poor orphaned relative?

QJohanna Ann Woolfrey was born in Tavistock in 1870 to William and Mary Garland Woolfrey (née Bray). She is on the 1871 and 1881 census with the family. William died in 1879, Mary in 1882 and Frederick Ralph (Johanna’s brother) in 1890. I cannot find any mention of her after 1881, when she was in Plymouth. Her father, William, was the older brother of my great grandfather John Woolfrey, who came from Lambeth. Anne Cragg-Sapsford

The last sighting we have of Johanna is in 1881 as a 10 year old living with her widowed mother and her brother Frederick, aged 12, at 43 Old Town Street in central Plymouth. Her mother, Mary Garland Woolfrey, died in Plymouth in early 1882, leaving her as an 11-year-old orphan (she was five months old in the 1871 census). Johanna’s brother was only two years older than her. So what would be likely to happen to two orphans in a big city in 1882? Normally, unless someone from the family

Astepped in to informally adopt them, they would go to the workhouse.

Frederick died on 27 October 1890, aged 21, at 6 Trafalgar Place, Stoke Damerel, just outside Plymouth, and was buried on 30 October at the parish church there. Using the address search on findmypast.co.uk for the 1891 census, I found a Thomas Quinn and family living at that address, so no clues there. Nor do the death certificates for Frederick and his parents that you have provided offer any leads.

Plymouth and West Devon Record Office closed in August 2019 to prepare for the move to a new, purpose-built archive centre.

The Box, in Plymouth, was due to open in spring this year, but the coronavirus pandemic delayed the opening until the end of September (see News, page 11). You’ll need to book your visit at theboxplymouth. com – it might be worth checking with the archivists before you do whether they have any records that might list the children in the workhouse or local orphanages.

Otherwise, I would advise researching close family in case they adopted Johanna and changed her name. Her mother’s family, the Brays of Peter Tavy, were geographically closest, so perhaps start there.

Peter Towey