Julia PARRY - COLLINS nee JENKINS 1849-1932 Ruspidge (General)

by Mike Pinchin , Bedford, England, Tuesday, April 02, 2019, 20:46 (2067 days ago) @ CINDERFORD PARRY/COLLINS

In the 1911 Census, Church Road, Cinderford, Julia PARRY makes no entry in the “years the Present marriage” column because she is, by then, a widow for (probably) the second time. She goes on to record five living children and none who have died. The living children can be accounted for by Adelaide, Edith and Thomas W. COLLINS, and William and Henry PARRY. If she had another child, Frederick Arthur, by Thomas COLLINS why would she not acknowledge that child by recording six instead of five? Of course it is always possible that Frederick was not Thomas’s son and he was the result of a liaison when Thomas was in America. But why no registration for him? By 1881 were there not penalties for failing to register? However, he is clearly acknowledged as a step-brother by Henry Parry who apparently had contact with him after childhood.

Have you considered the possibility that Thomas William and Frederick Arthur were one and the same person? (It would not be the first time I have seen someone adopt a different set of given names in later life – my own grandfather was baptised Oliver John but appears in all later records as Thomas Oliver.) I know it introduces a small age discrepancy WRT his death in 1914 but such things are not uncommon in Family History matters when the knowledge of an informant has to be relied on.

Why he might have changed his given names I could only guess. If he did change them it would have to be sometime between 1891 and 1904.

I guess a search for Thomas William in censuses after 1891 might demonstrate the above is not correct. At the moment I cannot see anything definitive. Although his siblings, Adelaide and Edith, were baptised at Cinderford (this site) I can’t identify a baptism for him anywhere. Am I missing something?