Let’s go further back in time

Now it’s time to find out about Percy’s father – Thomas Robert Massingham. “Hold on” you say, “how do we know who his father is?” Answer – another source. Percy’s birth certificate (above). Like many sources, difficult to read but that’s all part of being a detective. If we were starting from scratch, this is the document we would look for first. Why? we now know when he was born (the hidden part of the certificate also tells us he was born in King’s Lynn) we confirm his name and that he was male we have discovered his father’s name – Thomas Robert we now know his mother’s name - Elizabeth Jane Massingham (this is her married surname) we have his father’s occupation – another master butcher where his father was living when Percy was born Time to move on to Thomas Robert Massingham Let’s look at the family tree that we are going to start exploring. What can we see? Crossings out that mask his age. Maybe 39? Not helpful. Since birth certificates cost money, even when using an online family history site like Ancestry with a subscription, we’re going to try another census. One thing to remember about the census – it is a snapshot of the occupants of a dwelling on a specific day, so anyone at the property when the census was taken was included, even the milkman! This is 1881 (10 years earlier) and it looks like aged 29, so born about 1850. But look at the name. Is it really Thomas Robert Massingham? It looks like Mafsingham! In those days, it was common when writing “ss” to write the first “s” as an “f” (see below). Well Elizabeth Jane is his wife and she is shown on Percy’s birth certificate. There are children too and some with the same names appear on the 1891 census, So, yes, we decide it is. So by now, you should be able to get a feeling for the searching that has to be done to get accurate information about someone. But did you spot an issue on the 1891 census? The family is staying in 160 New Cross Road, London but in 1881 they are King’s Lynn. By the way, in 1901 they were all back in Norfolk again. Can we guess what was happening here? Is it likely that the family had moved from Norfolk to London and then back again? The census was 5th April and Easter Sunday was 31st March. Maybe the whole family had gone to Deptford for Easter and were staying with family? If you look at the 1891 census you can see that Elizabeth was born in Camberwell. Coincidence? If we were looking at the entire tree, this would be something to investigate.