Chasing a Family Legend Part Two

When we last left off in part one chasing the family legend that my great-great-grandmother Ada Williams was born to wealthy estate-owning parents in Wales, we had discovered that it wasn’t Ada but her mother, Elizabeth Davies, who had been born in Wales. So today we will pick up the trail where we left off. Our objective for today’s search: find out more about the life of Elizabeth Davies. Who were her parents? Where did she grow up? And of course, we will try to uncover if there is any truth to the family tale.

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What do we know?

As always, I like to start with a list of things that I know with a fair amount of certainty. So what do we know about Elizabeth Davies? Well, from the 1901 England & Wales Census and the GRO birth index extract for Ada Williams (her daughter), we can ascertain the following:

• She was married to James Williams, who was a Stone Mason

• They lived on Lead Works Lane in Chester for many years

• They had 4 daughters by 1901

• According to the 1901 census, she was born in Flintshire, Wales. When we look at the original document (not just the transcription - ALWAYS view the document for yourself!!,) we see a town written next to Flintshire. Bodfari.

• Her year of birth is recorded as 1866

I input the information I had into a timeline so I could better visualise any gaps that I might find records for.

As you can see, I have the following leads to follow:

• Birth record, there should be a civil registration for her

• Baptism record

• Marriage record

• Death and burial records

I decided I would start with the GRO.

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Search for GRO Birth Index

I searched with the following parameters:

• Registration year 1866 +/- 2 years

• Surname: Davies (exact)

• First name/s: Elizabeth (exact)

• District: Flintshire

NO RESULT!

I was going to have to expand out a little. I re-conducted the search with no listed district.

Which gave me 250 results… way too many to do anything with. But I had another tactic. I was going to try using the district of Denbighshire. You see, Bodfari was historically within Flintshire, but today sits in Denbighshire. So perhaps it has been listed under that instead in the index.

No result. Never mind. The next step is to broaden out the name parameters. So instead of exact matches, I’m going to put it on similar-sounding variations and put the district back to Flintshire.

Still no result.

Okay, it was time to move on. I need to gather more information and come back to the birth later. So where could I turn next?

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Marriage Records

I thought I’d try marriage records, so I did a general ancestry search and filtered down to marriage for “Elizabeth Davies born in 1866 married to James Williams born 1864” and I got only one result that matched my parameters. It checked the following boxes for matching information:

• Names

• Years of birth

• Occupation for James

• Jane Davies is a witness - probably a sister.

The only wildcard… the marriage took place in Liverpool. Now it’s not like it’s the other end of the country, but I have no other information to prove that this couple lived or worked in the Liverpool area. And another strange detail — while it states that Elizabeth lives in Liverpool, the marriage banns lists James’ residence as Llanrhydd in Wales. All very bizarre.

Map showing the locations we have so far. RED - Bodfari, Wales. YELLOW: Leadworks Lane, Chester. PURPLE - Liverpool. GREEN - Llanrhydd, Wales.

I’m am not confident enought that I can simply accept the marriage banns as fact… and I’m starting to get mighty frustrated. I decided it was time to employ a new method in pinning down Elizabeth. The FAN method (Family, Associates and Neighbours). I would research James more thoroughly to build more data points. The main thing I was looking for was evidence that his father was named James Williams who was a coach builder — that’s what was listed on the marriage banns. Luckily enough, I had his mother’s name, birth year and place of birth from the 1901 census. So it would make narrowing down a census easier.

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Searching the Census Records

James was born in 1864, so the first census that he would be recorded on would be 1871 which is where my search began. I used the following parameters:

• James Williams

• Born 1864 +/- 2 years in Cheshire

• Mothers name Hannah

I found one 1871 Census that matched my criteria for an 8 year old James Williams living in Chester in 1871 with his mother Hannah Williams, father James Williams and paternal grandmother Elizabeth Williams. But what else do I glean from this record:

• James Sr. is a porter - someone who moves goods in a variety of different settings, including railway stations.

• Hannah Williams was born in Manchester.

• A name for James Sr mother — Elizabeth Williams.

I’m still not getting my jackpot moment, and my searches for an 1881 census were fruitless. I thought perhaps the marriage Banns for James Sr and Hannah might be a good place to look, as it should list an occupation too.

I went to the Chester BMD website and searched the following:

• Spouse first and surname: James Williams

• Spouse #2 first name: Hannah

• Date range: 1856 - 1870

There was only one matching record for those parameters… and we hit lucky. James Williams occupation is listed as coach smith. I had a high level of confidence this was our guy. I also added the following pieces of information to the puzzle:

• Hannah’s maiden name was Beech

• They married Jan 31 1859

• James’ fathers name was Edward Williams

• Hannahs fathers names was John Beech

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Where are my thoughts?

I don’t have definitive proof or reason why Elizabeth Davies and James Williams were in Liverpool when they married. But from the circumstantial evidence we’ve gathered so far and the multiple points of data lining up — it seems reasonable to tentatviley accept that this was them.

For now, I think I will continue to gather my evidence on the people who surrounded Elizabeth Davies and try to build a better picture from there.

Lime Street, Liverpool, in the 1890s. Source: Wikicommons.