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Hello
I am trying to track down the heritage of my GGGrandfather William Spencer.
On the 1891 Census William and his wife Catherine (Price) are living in Manchester with their children but by 1901 they are both dead and the kids are in the orphanage (Swinton, where they are listed as Anglican), William and Catherine are both listed as being born in Bristol. The marriage certificate of my GGrandfather states that his father was a solider and as the 1891 census shows the birth place of his siblings to be Dublin I guessed that he served in Ireland.
I have been to the National Arcive in London but my search for military records was unsuccesful as has been my search for a marriage in the UK between William Spencer and Catherine Price. However, I did find the birth of the eldest child in the BMD indexes and his birthcertificate shows that his fater was a Private in the 57th Regiment based in Dublin and that the baptism was held in St James's Dublin. I can not find any records for the other two children who were also apparently born in Dublin.
I am pretty much out of ideas now other than going to Dublin to look in the records but I have a couple of questions that people may be able to help with or at least give me some ideas that I have not had yet!
1) St James' Church Dublin today appears to be a Catholic Church, would an English soldier have had his child baptised in a Catholic Church?
2) It seems unusual to me that a soldiers wife would be in Dublin with her husband if they both came from Bristol. Was is usual for wives to be stationed with their husbands or is it possible that they met and married in Dublin?
3) Would the lack of military records suggest that he was not pensioned and the fact that he had two more children in Dublin who are not in the British BMDs suggest that he lived with his wife as an Irish citizen before moving back to Manchester?
4) Was it unusual for English soldiers to marry Irish girls?
Thanks for reading this, I hope somebody may have some experience that could assist me. I must say that as I wrote this all out it seems very likely that Catherine was Irish and not born in Bristol after all. Does anybody know a good researcher in Dublin who may be able to query the records for me?
Oh, lastly. The certificate was signed by Nichael Donoovan C.C , any idea what the CC is? It is a military certificate
Many thanks
Kieron
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Kieron,
Just to say that my gg. grandfather came from London and was in the army, his wife was Irish and he had 2 children born there. I found their marriage and birth of Children on IGI Pilot worth a look. He was posted Fermoy where there were barracks. I am in process of sending for the certificates. I also believe they had to ask permission to get married if in army.
Carol
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Thank you!
I took a look at that site and have found a marriage reference for both William Spencer AND Catherine Price that is identical, I am not sure how the Irish records work but if this was British and they were both on the same page I would be certain of a match. Now, I need to work out how to order the certificate.
thanks again
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the marriage will probably be in the Army indices on Find My Past you can order from the GRO with the ref given and specifying its an overseas marriage
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Just a couple of notes.
It was very very common for English soldiers stationed in Ireland in the mid-1850s to marry Irish women. And then often they had children born in Canada when he got stationed here! or in other places where the military sent him.
The woman's birthplace in the census could just be an assumption by an enumerator, for instance. Unfortunately, census birthplaces were sometimes just random that way.
But another possibility is that she was the daughter of another English soldier stationed in Ireland. That's also something quite common among members of the British military stationed in Canada in that era -- young men married daughters of British military families here. So you get households in the later English censuses with the spouses born in some combination of England, Scotland, Ireland and Canada, who met while the husband and the wife's father were stationed in Canada for instance.
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