Step 1 – The 1901 Census analysis

My next step is to find the marriage certificate for Martino Marelli and his wife. Thanks to the 1901 Census, I will also source Amy’s birth certificate, as I have learnt her maiden name, approximate year of birth and birthplace. Hopefully, you will have similar information about your own family.

Before heading off to search for a marriage or other certificate, I suggest you analyse the information you found on the 1901 Census. In my case it raised some questions. Was Amy only 13 years old when her first child was born? If so, then why was there a ten-year gap between the ages of two of their children? (Matilda born in 1883 and Albert born in 1893). Could Martino have been married twice?

If the ten-year gap indicates a possible second marriage I have to presume that the second marriage took place close to 1893. Therefore, I have decided to look at the 1891 Census for Martino and family for clarification of my suspicions.

Step 2 – 1891 Census analysis

Log on to your chosen Census resource website, in my case Ancestry.co.uk, and select the Census year 1891.

To my dismay, keying in the name Martino Marelli produced no results. So I tried using just the surname of Marelli. This produced five persons with the surname Marelli. Unfortunately, none was related to my family.

Now I had two choices. I could search the whole parish of Battersea in the district of Lambeth, and hope that he was living there at the time, or I could try some surname spelling variations. I keyed in Marelli and chose to have a Soundex search (a search that would produce spelling variations of the surname Marelli), which gave me over 29,000 results. So I tried again using varying information about the location such as Battersea and Lambeth, using spellings such as Mirilli, Morrelli, Murelli etc. and still nothing! Did this mean trawling through 29,000 results or, worse, searching the whole of Lambeth in the hope that the Marelli family was living there in 1891. With a name like Marelli, I expected this to be far simpler, so what other information do I have that is uncommon that would help my search?

Eventually, it hit me like a sledgehammer! I decided to try anyone born in Italy now living in Lambeth.

This produced 33 results and only one that looked possible, Martins Marcelli:

Clicking on ‘View Record’ produced the following information:

Viewing the original told me I had the correct record, even though transcribed incorrectly. Not only had I found another daughter of Martino born in 1877, making it impossible for Amy to be her mother, the original document also told me that Martino was a widower. There is also information about a nephew, George McDonald.

Ancestry also provides a sample of handwriting used in the original Census returns. Select a Census year and on the right of the screen you will find downloadable blank Census forms and sample handwriting.

The information I now have about Martino is that he was previously married probably pre-1877, when his daughter Ellen was born, and between 1891 (Martino is a widower on the 1891 Census) and 1893, when Albert Marelli was born. I decided to look for both marriage certificates, because the second marriage provides direct ancestors to my husband, and, from the first marriage, the children of Martino and Ellen are half-ancestors.

Step 3 – FreeBMD and marriage search

A quick check in FreeBMD produced the following:

As you can see, there are two marriages listed for Martino; one in 1875 and one in 1891. I already have Lilian Chappell and Albert Marelli. For the purpose of this exercise please see below both marriage certificates for Martino (see also Chapter 1, Step 4).

The surname McDonald tells me that the George McDonald found on the 1891 Census is a relative/nephew of Martino’s by marriage. What is odd is that Martino lists his father’s name as Martino and gives him the same profession as himself, although he was an orphan and supposedly could not have this knowledge. But it is the second marriage that interests me because it follows the direct family line.

This certificate shows us that Martino records his father as Angelo Marelli, a farmer. The witnesses at this marriage appear to be William Plummer, Amy’s father and Ellen Marelli, Martino’s daughter. It also shows us that Amy’s father is William Plummer as we discovered on the 1901 Census and confirms that Amy was born in about 1867. I can now add this information to the family tree, listing sources, and look for a birth certificate for Amy Plummer.

Step 4 – Birth certificate and, the Census

Out of several possibilities using FreeBMD, I found the following record for Alice Amy Plummer:

This was the only result that seemed possible even with the first names reversed, but before purchasing this birth certificate, I decided to verify the information via the 1871 Census since Amy or Alice was alive in 1871. I tried several variations of the name Plummer using both Alice and Amy and her father’s name of William. I could find no records of this family on the 1871 Census – very frustrating. I moved to the 1881 Census.

Great, found her! This information also gives me details of Amy’s siblings and the name of her mother plus approximate birth-dates and locations for each concerned. Although pleased to have found Amy in the 1881 Census, I felt irritated that I hadn’t found her on the 1871 Census, so I went back and, based on the above information, I was a little more creative.

Previous searches for both William and Amy/Alice Plummer produced nothing, so this time I keyed in Susan Plummer – still nothing! In frustration, I put in the following information:

1871 England Census

The search produced the following:

Out of 16 possible Susans born in Melksham, the most likely was the above record. I clicked on ‘View Record’ and then ‘View Others in Household’ and I knew I had my Plummers! The original record confirmed this, listing William’s occupation as railway porter (on Amy’s marriage certificate dated 1891 William is a railway signalman), and of course Amy as a child.

As I now had information on Martino’s second wife Amy, a direct ancestor, and her parents, my next step is to source her birth certificate which will provide me with the maiden name of her mother before moving to Albert’s in-laws, the Chappells.

As you can see, Amy’s mother was formerlly a Jordan and further confirmation that I have the correct certificate is William’s occupation. The next obvious step is to locate the marriage certificate for William and Susan.

FreeBMD produced the following marriage search on William Plummer and, by viewing others on the same page, the name Susan Jordan also appears, confirming I had the right information.

I now have details of William’s and Susan’s fathers, plus their occupations and therefore another generation. This certificate also tells me that William’s father was deceased by 1865. I now add this information to the family tree.

Recap

• 1.Analyse Census data.
• 2.Decide if your next step would be better served by reviewing other Census data or by searching BMD certificates.
• 3.If choosing the Census for further clues it is almost guaranteed that you will have problems with misspellings. Be creative, study the information you have and think of other search options if you can’t find what you are looking for.
• 4.Reading original data can sometimes be difficult. Find examples of 19th century writing to help decipher original documents.
• 5.Use the Census to provide you with approximate birth-dates to source birth certificates.
• 6.Use the Census to provide clues for finding marriage certificates.
• 7.The total cost so far is:

  Annual UK Deluxe Membership with Ancestry.co.uk	£69.95
  Cost of eight certificates	£56.00
  Total	£125.00

 Tips

• 1.A marriage certificate provides information about the births of both parties concerned and gives the names of the father of both parties.
• 2.A birth certificate provides clues to a marriage date and will give you the maiden name of the mother.
• 3.Always check as many variations of a spelling as possible before going through laborious searches of districts – although this does produce results, it is time consuming.
• 4.Even when you have a rare surname it does not mean searching will be straightforward.
• 5.Look for information pertaining to your family that makes them stand out from the crowd when having difficulty searching, e.g. first name or location of birth, etc.
• 6.The information found on the Census can vary from Census to Census, so treat the contents as approximate in terms of age, place of birth and so on, until you have other evidence to back it up.