Disappearing ancestors

QI have collated some details and hope you may be able to help me find my missing couple. Edward Eaton, born and baptised 1824, Sutton on the Hill, married Sarah Adams in 1846. I have records for Edward on the 1851, ’61 and ’71 Census returns; an 1855 Post Office Directory; and poll books dating from 1857, ’59, and ’68. There is a mention in the Loughborough Monitor of an Edward Eaton selling Orthorpe Hall farm in 1861. The details on other records do not fit, however. The death certificates for Edward Eaton in Derby in 1891 and 1893 and that for Sarah Eaton in 1874 are not the right person.

I find it incredible that a person can be working on a farm of considerable size in one census and thereafter he and his wife just disappear.

AKeith Eaton Clearly, a lot of work has been done on this case and I suspect that you may have the correct person in the frame already. At first sight, the Derby Mercury advertisements from February 1884 look promising. These refer to the auction sale of the farm stock and household furniture of Edward Eaton of Long Furlong Farm, Rosliston near Burton-ontrent. However, this is not an address previously associated with Edward Eaton of Egginton and census searches show it to be a different person altogether. He was living at Long Furlong Farm in 1881, aged 78 and born at Ratcliffe Culey, Leicestershire, as were his son and two daughters. He is almost certainly the Edward Eaton whose death was registered in Burton district in Q2 1883, aged 80.

You mention that Edward Eaton of Cheadle, Cheshire is listed in the 1891 Census as being born at Sutton on the Hill, Derbyshire (in some transcriptions ‘Sutton on Hull’). This is a very specific location that matches known information and looks like a dead giveaway. He was 67 (therefore born around 1824 – same age as the ancestral Edward), a widower, ‘living on own means’ as a boarder in the household of Sarah Dawson, also 67. At first I thought the two may be cohabiting, but Sarah appears in the 1881 Census at another address in Cheadle with two other boarders born locally. So it looks as though she was just his landlady.

I believe this is the Edward Eaton whose death was registered in Stockport district in Q4 1894, aged 73. This is around three years older than Edward’s actual age but it’s quite common for the age to be incorrect if the death was not registered by a family member. I couldn’t find reference to a burial or probate, which may have further information, so you’d need to get the certificate to be sure.

I was unable to locate Edward in 1881 or Sarah’s death, but if the Stockport death is confirmed, this narrows the parameters for the search, as well as bringing Cheadle into the equation. MS

Can you help?

Liverpool & Bootle Police Orphanage query

My mother and her three siblings were placed in the Liverpool & Bootle Police Orphanage in the 1920s after their father died, and I would love to hear if any of readers had relatives who were there during the time it was open.

Thank you.

Vivienne Cliff [If you are able to help Vivienne, please email helen.t@familytree.co.uk and she will forward your correspondence]