Matilda PRICE . 1859 -1906 Awre (General)

by nshoult, Tuesday, March 02, 2010, 22:54 (5459 days ago) @ nshoult

Having dug a bit deeper...

The information does seem to stack up. Matilda was with the Phelps's in 1861 and 1871 but not in 1881, when she shows up in Leicestershire. Since she was in Awre from at least the age of 3, it doesn't seem surprising that she quotes this as her place of birth later on, and giving a father's name of William on her marriage certificate makes sense if she was brought up by William and Ann Phelps.

Incidentally, Ann's age seems very inconsistent between censuses - the image I looked at for 1861 seems to show 38 while that for 1871 census clearly shows 71, in both cases the place of birth is Gatcombe so it's unlikely they are different people. The FoD records show William and Ann as being married in Awre on 27/12/1840, no obvious connection with the Price's.

I tried to trace Mary Price a bit further. From the FoD records, there is a plausible baptism on 2/12/1838 in Parkend, parents William and Elizabeth, living in Pillowell which isn't far from Lydney. Census records for 1841 show a Mary Price of the right age living in Pillowell with the Morgan family. On the assumption that these are the same person, I searched for either a William or Elizabeth Price in the 1841 census, and found the latter (of about the right age) living at Clift Farm, Lydney - with, amongst many others, a family by the name of Phelps. This may explain why Matilda was later cared for by others of that name.

Unfortnately, beyond that the trail goes cold - Mary Price is a fairly common name, she certainly wasn't at the same address in later censuses so it's almost impossible to know which Mary is which.

Once again, thanks to everyone who's contributed - it's helped me to find out a little about a previously unknown part of my family.