Did my great great grandfather leave the country?
QMy great great grandfather William
Longden was born in 1830 in Ashford in the Water, Derbyshire. He married Martha Hill on 6 August 1848 in Tideswell, Derbyshire. Their first child, Benjamin Andrew, was born on 17 November 1848 and a second, Frederick, on 5 June 1854. In 1858 Martha, declaring herself a widow, married William Foster in Chesterfield. I can find no death record for William Longden, however there is a passport application for a William Longden from September 1855.
Brian Longden
AFrederick was actually the fourth child of William and Martha. A search of civil births in Derbyshire between 1840 and 1860 on Findmypast ( findmypast.co.uk) for Longdens (or similar) with mother’s maiden surname Hill produces four results: Benjamin Andrew (1848), John (1850, who died the same year), another John (1852) and Frederick (1854).
The first three children were born in the Tideswell Registration District (RD), but Frederick was registered in the neighbouring Ashton under Lyne RD. He is shown in the 1861 and 1871 censuses with the surname Foster, but in the 1881 census he appears as ‘Frederick Longden’, which suggests that William was alive until at least 1853.
I did find a William Longden who died in Ashton under Lyne RD in 1857. His age is shown as seven in the General Register Office (GRO) index of deaths at https://www.gro.gov. uk, but I could find no birth record for him, nor any sign of him as a baby in the 1851 census. Perhaps the age should really be 27 and this is your great great grandfather. You may wish to send for this record.
If, on the other hand, William did emigrate, then there is a William Langden from England living in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on the 1860 and 1870 US censuses available on Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk). He says that he is married to a woman named Jane, also hailing from England, and they have a fiveyear-old son William in 1860, who was born in Pennsylvania. This would suggest that William and Jane arrived in the country between 1850 and 1855.
According to Ancestry’s 1888 and 1890 voter registers for Alameda, California, William the father was naturalised in Alleghenny on 13 March 1858. It may be worth following up this William to find out more about him. Alan Stewart