1904 Minnie Manns (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, November 22, 2018, 17:12 (2192 days ago) @ Ladies

Hi,
apparently Minnie was often used as a nickname for Mary (??!!), but also Minerva, Winifred, Wilhelmina, Hermione, Clementine or Amelia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie

Back to her parents, you say she was born to John Manns b1873 & 1874 Margaret (Mary) Alice Browning b1874. I guess this info is from the 1911 Census ?.

My first go-to tool is usually the FreeBMD site, have you used it ?
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

It's not overly user-friendly insofar it only gives hits for exact matches of surname spelling (unlike GlosBMD for example), but it's still a very helpful tool indeed, especially for post 1911 records. Depending on whether a record is before or after 1911 then it can sometimes give full second names instead of just initial letters. Also, for births from 1911 onwards, we can search using both father's and mother's maiden names, altho this doesn't help wrt your Minnie of course.

I cannot easily find any records for your Margaret, but that's because I'm confused when you include (Mary) ?. I wonder if infact that name (on the census form?) actually refers to Minnie and not her mother (I don't have the census image to look at). ??
The fact that Minnie was often associated with Mary seems to confirm that ??

Additionally, searching for a Marriage of John Manns to wife surname Browning gives this record from FreeBMD which seems to be a good fit;

Surname First name(s) District Vol Page
Marriages Dec 1892 (>99%)
Browning Margaret Alice Gloucester 6a 535
Laurence Fanny Elizabeth Gloucester 6a 535
Manns John Gloucester 6a 535
Price William Henry Gloucester 6a 535

(By "Dec" in this website's terms this means the mariage was registered sometime during the Quarter of Oct/Nov/Dec.)

We still don't know for certain who married who from this record.

But now we have a year we can try GlosBMD for hopefully more detail.
http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/bmd/MainMenu.aspx

Thankfully we can find this record which confirms we have the right couple

Marriage Details
Groom Surname Groom Forename Bride Surname Bride Forename District Parish Building Year Register Entry
MANNS John BROWNING Margaret Alice Gloucester Gloucester St James 1892 29x No 5 310

This rather suggests the "(Mary)" record you mentioned does infact relate to their daughter Minnie, and not Margaret.

This lets us find these records;

FreeBMD
Surname First name(s) District Vol Page
Births Sep 1872 (>99%)
BROWNING Margaret Alice Gloucester 6a 295

And GlosBMD gives us more detail esp her mother's maiden name;

Birth Details
Child Surname Child Forename Mother's Former Name Year District Office Register Entry
BROWNING Margaret Alice BAYLIS 1872 Gloucester Gloucester, South Hamlet 29 138

To me this date confirms the 1872 date you quoted earlier was off a Census, it's not unusual for people in the past to fib about their age, especially ladies.
At this point FreeBMD gives too many "John Manns" born in our area to be certain which record is ours.

Now using Familysearch to find them on the Census (the only site I currently have access to, so must rely on their sometimes vague transcripts as cannot see the image, but it is free to use plus very user-friendly wrt offering spelling variations etc).

1901 Calton Rd, South Hamlet, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England
Household Role Sex Age Birthplace
John Manns Head M 28 Labourer (Bricklayers). Dymock, Gloucestershire
Mary A Manns Wife F 27 Upton S Leonards, Gloucestershire
Rita M Manns Daughter F 6 Gloucester
Walter E Manns Son M 2 Gloucester

(Suspect this is your family, as see Walter E Manns as per yr previous query.

Can confirm by checking the children's births using GlosBMD;

Birth Details
Child Surname Child Forename Mother's Former Name Year District Office Register Entry
MANNS Rita Mabel BROWNING 1895 Gloucester Gloucester, South Hamlet 64 252

Birth Details
Child Surname Child Forename Mother's Former Name Year District Office Register Entry
MANNS Walter Edwin Vincent BROWNING 1898 Gloucester Gloucester, South Hamlet 71 313

Which all fits perfectly.

I cannot find any relevant records for these children or their mother in this site's Parish Records, that's because they are not within the Forest of Dean district.

I also wondered if Calton was an error from Carlton perhaps, but no, there is indeed such a road in Gloucester. Wondered as the FamilySearch site used to be renowned for errors according to the FH text books, but in my experience they're as good as any other site.
eg https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/gloucestershire-county-council-news/news-december-20...

I see the ages quoted on this census matches the info you gave us, I wonder if wife Margaret wanted to appear younger than she was as some folk in the past thought wives should be younger than their husband.

Not sure why but at this point I'm struggling to find them on later Census's

????

I'm sure you already have some of these records, but it's good to check and cross-refer.
Hope this helps for now, teatime beckons,
J.