searchmyancestry – Ruth A. Symes
Innovative approaches to understanding more about your family history
Delighted to announce the publication of my article on Marriage Mishaps in November 2025’s Discover Your Ancestors online periodical (by subscription). http://www.discoveryourancestors.com No-shows at the altar, mixups with the marriage vows and umpteen weddings that were stalled at the eleventh hour !
On censuses, many young Victorian girls pretended that they had already reached the age of 15 in order to have a better chance of obtaining work as domestic servants and to command better wages when they did so. Sidney Paget, the Boscombe Valley Mystery, Illustration of 'The Boscombe Valley Mystery', in The Adventures of Sherlock... Continue Reading →
Women of all classes fabricated their age on the nineteenth century censuses. The government report into the census of 1881 stated that many women ‘desirous of being thought younger than they really are, return themselves as under 25 or under 30 when their true age is considerably beyond these limits.’ Interestingly, there was also a... Continue Reading →
searchmyancestry - Ruth A. Symes 