George PHELPS 1850 Hazel Hill / Horsepool Bottom (General)

by helenb, Saturday, October 10, 2009, 10:39 (5598 days ago) @ reporter

Have found it interesting to read this thread as I hadn't caught on that George E Phelps was illegitimate. George PHELPS who married Lydia WOOD was my Great Great Grandfather through his son Thomas Walter PHELPS who married Blanche LEWIS (nee ROBERTS) in approx 1926. They had ten children between 1901 and 1915, the last being my grandfather Sidney PHELPS. Blanche had a son from her first marriage, Cyril LEWIS born in 1898. I do not know why they didn't marry until 1926 unless it was that her first husband died around the same time and she had not divorced him. It took a while to find the childrens birth registrations until someone pointed out that they were under LEWIS with PHELPS being taken as a middle name. They presumably dropped the Lewis when their parents married.

Lydia WOOD's mother Hannah WOOD (nee STIDDER) appears to have remarried by 1881 as George and Lydia's daughter Florence is staying with her grandparents in the 1881 census - William RUDGE and Hannah RUDGE. I have found an entry for a marriage of a Hannah WOOD on the freebmd site Qtr MAR 1862 Westbury S 6a 297 but the other side of the entry is missing. I am assuming that it could be William RUDGE.