How do I find out more about my grandmother?
QI have been unable to find out any information about my father’s mother, including when she was born, whether she got married, whether she had any more children and when she died, as there is confusion over her name in section five and seven on my father’s birth certificate. Can you help? Mike Fox
AYour father’s birth certificate shows he was born in the Union Workhouse in Chiltington, Sussex, in 1888. His mother is recorded as Mary Ann Ellis Fox, “a domestic servant of Wivelsfield”.
The discrepancy between her name in column five (the mother’s details) and column seven (the informant’s details) is easily explained because the full name she gave is recorded in column five, whereas the informant column only shows how she signed the entry.
The unusual name of Mary Ann Ellis Fox should make her easy to trace, but she seems to have no previous (or later) records in that full name, so did she add something for the birth register – perhaps to incorporate the father’s name into hers? Could she have been a Mary
Ann Fox, or a Mary Ann Ellis? There is a girl of that name in Cuckfield, only four miles from Wivelsfield, in 1881, who would have been 15 in 1888, and isn’t with her family in 1891.
Have you found your father’s baptism, perhaps in Wivelsfield? It would be interesting to see what name his mother used then.
In 1891 and 1901, George H Fox is living in the household of George and Sophia Welfare in Wivelsfield. He is shown as a boarder but, given the location, was there a connection between them and Mary Ann?
You can find information on the workhouses in that area of Sussex on workhouses.org.uk and some of the records are available and held at The Keep ( thekeep.info), so they should also be checked.
Antony Marr