BRIDGET SMITH (nee SEARY) - DEATH CERTIFICATE / BURIAL RECORD - 1928

I updated my records yesterday with respect to my wife's great-grandmother, Bridget SEARY, and processed the two documents which I'm including here for the use of other researchers. 

Bridget's married name was SMITH, after marrying her husband Michael SMITH in 1890 in St Albans Church in Liverpool.

Bridget was born in Celbridge, a small town in County Kildare, Ireland, in 1873. Her husband was a Scouser, born in Liverpool in 1870, and after considering the birthdates and birthplaces associated with her siblings, it would appear that the SEARY family had emigrated and settled permanently in Liverpool between 1875 and 1876. 

Following their marriage, Micheal and Bridget had at least nine children between 1891 to 1909.

As can be seen by the information on the certificate above, Bridget died on 5 March 1928 in Walton Hospital, Rice Lane, Liverpool. She was said to be 53 years old on the death certificate and had died of a cerebral haemorrhage - otherwise known as a stroke.

Bridget was buried in Ford Cemetery, Liverpool - one of the main Catholic cemeteries in the district - on the 9 March 1928 in grave number 654. Above is a copy of the burial register for that period. 

WEDDING WEDNESDAY - UNKNOWN LIVERPOOL WEDDING

The photograph below was discovered in a selection of photo's which were in the possession of my aunt, Ellen Elizabeth WELSH (aka. Betty), when she passed away.

They obviously depict a wedding group, but only a few of the people on it have been identified. The actual location of the wedding is also a mystery, but it is assumed that the church was located somewhere in Liverpool.

The gentleman second from the left is my grandfather, William John WELSH. The lady on the back row next to him is his wife, my grandmother, Elizabeth ENGLEBRETSEN. She is the lady wearing the glasses and the flower on her hat. On the front row, the young girl on the left is their niece, Marion Erlis.

The rest of the people have not as yet been identified.

I have shared this photo with family members and we still have not been able to identify the others in the group. It is a bit of a mystery... and there is no way of telling if the photograph shows some of our relations, or perhaps friends or neighbours.

Only time will tell... although possibly with the help of some kind soul on the Internet who may recognise them!

MAPPING MONDAY - USING GOOGLE MY MAPS FOR GENEALOGY

One of the more useful features of Google is the ability to use its Mapping facility to keep track of your genealogical data. For the 'Mapping Monday' article, I thought I’d cover a few of the features available which I use.



Above is the shared version of my Seaman Family Burial Site data. This is the default view which I have chosen to share with the general public, but the view - like the levels of security which you can build into the page - can be tailored exactly as you wish. For example, the base image can reflect Earth data as it is here, or configured to show a more simple map graphic. A selection of different colours can be chosen for this as you prefer.
As you can see, each of the cemetaries listed has been given its own layer on the image. These can be turned on and off using the checkboxes to the left of the menu. Selecting either the name of the relative on the left hand menu or on the icon itself on the map, displays an image and other details of the grave site which have been recorded (see below).
 

Editing the maps is great fun and can be achieved using the ‘Edit’ option, (which is only accessible to the map owner and any defined collaborators), to access the Google ‘My Maps’ view (below).


The styles and format of each of the layers is configurable separately… allowing features such as the icons, icon colour, text, grouping of labels, level naming conventions etc. to be changed as required. All changes made are saved to Drive, so unwanted changes can be undone if required. Additional items such as new icons, line drawing on the map, and also distance measurement are also available. New layers can also be easily added as required.


As can be seen above, there is also a direction facility which allows you to include this information on a separate layer on the map if required. This information will feed through to the shared map view (so you could include directions to the grave location from the nearest railway station for example), but this data is not configurable to view only users.


Finally, as can be seen in the example above, if images are captured using a smartphone or digital camera with built in GPS, then the exact location of the graves are recorded against the images. When these are placed into the software, the grave locations can be recorded almost exactly, allowing subsequent researchers to the site the best chance of finding the graves for themselves. 


One final example of how these maps can be most useful is to track the migration of families around the country at various times. The example above shows graphically how my LAIT family relations originated in Norfolk with my 5x great-grandfather, Timothy Lait, and finally ended up in Liverpool with my grandmother Margaret Eleanor Graham LAIT, who I am named after. They made a total journey of 409 kms, which took in excess of 159 years, and crossed six generations (eight if you include myself and my father).

So next time you get a little disheartened trying to break down those brick walls in your core data, open up Google, grab yourself an account, and start mapping those ancestors! 
I guarantee that you’ll enjoy it!

JAMES & MARY DUNN - MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE - 1895

Another of the documents I discovered in my TTDL folder was this, the marriage certificate for my wife's great-grandparents, James and Mary DUNN.

They were married on 3rd November 1895 in the so-called 'seaman's' church in Liverpool - St Nicholas... the original parish church of Liverpool. The church is located at the bottom of Chapel Street, close to the Pier Head and Princes Dock, and for many years would perhaps have been the first ecclesiastical building to be seen by the crewmen as they disembarked from the ships.

The couple themselves lived in separate addresses in Vernon Street in the city centre, and although they had the same surname it does not appear that they were related - although a distant connection may still be discovered at some point. Jame's father, also called James, was born in 1853 in Liverpool. Mary's father Edward Dunn however, was born in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1852.

Marriage Certificate - James and Mary DUNN - Liverpool, 1895

THOMAS LAIT - DEATH CERTIFICATE - 6/11/1859

SATURDAY DATA SHAREDAY - Thomas LAIT (b.1781 Diss, Suffolk; d.1859 Palgrave, Suffolk)

Today I found this copy of my g-grandfather's (x4) death certificate in my TTDL folder. I'd entered the data up from it, but just hadn't put it away after I'd finished with it! That's one sure way of losing an important document such as this... note to self to smack on wrist!

Of course I took this as some kind of an omen and decided to post it up here as well! Hopefully there will be less chance of it getting mislaid from this point on!

Thomas died when he was 80 years old of certified old age. He had been a coach builder by trade, as were at least four of his sons who had followed him into the profession. The death was informed by his son Charles, who had been 49 years old at the time of his father's death.

A notice was also found to have been printed in one of the local newspapers about his death.

Thomas LAIT - Death Certificate

Death Notice

FAMILY HEIRLOOM - GRANDAD'S SHIRT SUSPENDERS - William John WELSH

5/1/2017 - GRANDAD'S SHIRT SUSPENDERS

For Treasure Chest Thursday I give you a photo of my grandad - William John WELSH, pictured in the backyard of his home in Hughson Street, Toxteth in the mid 1950's.

Near his elbows on each arm, you can just see the folds caused by the elastic suspenders he was wearing, to keep his shirt cuffs clear of his hands which hopefully will keep them a little cleaner.

The shirt suspenders themselves are pictured on the right, and consist of a circle of elastic ribbon covered by thin flexible steel wire. These were left to me by my aunt Betty, Ellen Elizabeth WELSH, prior to her death.

I still keep them in the box with my other jewelry, and wear them sometimes when the occasion arises.

#familyheirlooms #treasurechestthursday #williamjohnwelsh #toxteth #shirtsuspenders 

HILLMAN MINX AND COBBLES IN TOXTETH (1964)

For the 'Wordless Wednesday' blog prompt today I submit this beauty from the early 1960's. Hughson Street, Toxteth... the row of neat two-up two-down houses where we lived... Mum, little bro and I on the step in dubious socks and short trousers... and a Hillman Minx from around 1964.

And of course, the cobbles. 

It was just murder trying to ride your bike on those!

Hughson Street, Toxteth,  Liverpool 8