Yahoo Answers is shutting down on 4 May 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Can you help me find this person in the census?
I have a relative, Mary Grace Branton, who seems to have vanished after the UK 1871 census, only to reappear in 1901. I'm wondering if anyone can help me find her on censuses (either in the UK or abroad) between those dates?
She is born in Hartland, Devonshire in 1862 and appears on the 1871 census (RG10/2206/4, household 29) as an eight-year-old living in the hamlet of South Hole, Hartland, with her father, William, mother, Mary, and siblings (Susanna, William, Thomas, Ellen and Georgina).
I can find no trace of her in the records after that until 1896, when she (as "Mary Grace Bronton") marries Charles Frederick Iles in Stoke Bishop, Bristol. She thereafter appears in the 1901 and 1911 censuses under her married name, Mary Grace Iles, working as a pork butcher in Bristol, by which time she has a niece, Maud Braunton, living with her (Maud DOES appear on the 1891 census, living with her grandparents, William and Mary, back in Welcombe, Devon, so this Mary Grace is clearly the same as the 1871 one).
Can anyone help me find her between 1871 and 1896? My family were regularly using both Branton and Braunton as a surname spelling at that time and I've also searched under "Bronton" (which she seems to use at her marriage), but with no joy.
She may well just be working as a farm servant somewhere in Devon under a really unusual transcription error name (but for TWO censuses?), but it's just possible she may have been abroad during those dates (3 of her brothers were living in the US or Canada for some of the time she goes missing).
Or maybe I'm missing something really obvious?
ETA: Thanks for the answers so far. @FuriousUnicorn Her brothers John and Matthew went to Pennsylvania (Northampton and Lackawanna counties, respectively) and her brother William went to Ontario, Canada (Middlesex County). Trouble is, they were all in England for the 1881 census, so she wasn't with them then and she's not with William in the 1891 census (a lot of the PA 1890 census records have been lost)
Yes, 30s is late to marry (although, as it happens, two of her sisters also married in their 30s). I suppose it's possible she may have informally adopted the surname of a common-law partner in the interim.
@ Maxi It's definitely not Ezekiel Friend - I doublechecked him against the 1881 census and he married Norah. William Branton is a possible (and would explain why her name was still "Bronton" when she married Charles Iles) but the only couple I can find that might be them in the 1881 and 1891 census, Mary's birthplace and date are out (not so out t
2 Answers
- MaxiLv 78 years agoFavourite answer
Birth Sep 1862 BRANTON Mary Grace Bideford 5b 515
There is a marriage of a Mary Branton to either to either Ezekiel FRIEND or a William BRANTON 4Q 1878 .............
- Anonymous8 years ago
If you have the marriage cert for Mary and Charles does the residential address or the witnesses give any sort of useful clue.
The brothers that went overseas - have you been able to find them in the 1880 census or have any more precise dates or locations for them?
It's a bit unusual to have your first marriage in your thirties back then, plus she is older than her husband so it does make you wonder what she's been up to in those missing years.