searchmyancestry – Ruth A. Symes
Innovative approaches to understanding more about your family history
Florence Georgiana Spooner Carr (later Gray) formal portrait in Egret-feathered Hat ca 1878. Photographers C&R Lavis, Eastbourne, Via Wikimedia Commons. In a series of visits to Britain between 1862 and 1870, outspoken Frenchman Hippolyte Taine wrote lengthily about his impressions, and his comments-at-a-distance give us a clear and fascinating view of our ancestors in a... Continue Reading →
Some women described themselves as ‘widows’ on censuses in order that they did not have to explain that their husbands had been imprisoned or transported. James Tissot, A Widow (1868), Via Wikipedia Commons.
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 