Tracing the parents and siblings of Martha Alford

This post will look into the parents and siblings of Martha Alford. Following on from last week's blog, where I researched the Alford family through the England Census' from 1841 to 1861, I am able to create the start of a family tree of them as below:

First, I decided to do a search of the birth index on the General Register Office (GRO) website for the 5 youngest children of Thomas Alford and Mary as this civil records started in 1837 in England. I set my search criteria with the surname of Alford, starting from the year 1837 and filtered to the district of birth as Shepton Mallet. I found all 5 of the youngest Alford children as detailed below:

So we have discovered that Mary Ann, Martha's mother, had the maiden name of Galphin or Galpin. I next did I search of the Familysearch website and found a marriage entry [6] on 19 January 1830 between Thomas Alford and Mary Ann Galpin in Broadwindsor, Dorset, England, which would fit with all the information that we have collated as far. 

I then began to research backwards using the Ancestry website for the baptisms of the children of Thomas and Mary Ann Alford beginning with the youngest child, Clara. The table below details of the baptisms found:

This found one additional child, a daughter, Mary, born in about 1833 [14]. Also, the dates of birth were listed on the baptism records of the 5 youngest children, born in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England. One of the daughters was baptised with the name given as Helen [8]  although the GRO website index details her name as Ellen [4]  as do the 1851 and 1861 England Census (Click here to see the blog post). 

As a number of the children were absence from the Census records from 1841, 1851 & 1861, I did search of the burial records for Dorset and Somerset on the Ancestry website to try and establish if these children had sadly passed away when they were young. The table below details my findings:

Of the 10 children Thomas and Mary Ann Alford had, I have found 4 who sadly died in childhood. It is interesting to note, that although they had moved to Shepton Mallet by the time of the 1841 England Census, 3 of the deceased children were returned to Sherborne to be buried. The deaths of Rosa [21], Jane [22] and Frederick James [23] are also noted on the death index on the General Register Office (GRO) website.   

Finally for this update, I wanted to establish when Thomas Alford passed away. He is listed on the 1841 England Census [24] with his family in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. On the 1851 England though he is not listed [25]  and Mary Ann Alford is listed as widowed so he died between 1841 and 1851. 

First I decided to check to see if he was listed in a county trade directory for Somerset. For this, I visited the University of Leicester Special Collections website where they have local trade directories for various English counties along with Wales from 1766 to 1946. Only one of them was from a time period and covered the area relevant to my research and that was the Pigot & Co's Directory 1844 which included  Somersetshire along with other counties. Thomas Alford is listed alongside an entry for the George Inn, Market Place, Shepton Mallett [26] so he was alive until 1844.

Next, I used the FreeBMD website, setting the criteria to search for Thomas' death, with a date range between 1844 and 1851 and confined to the county of Somerset. 4 results were returned. On checking the General Register Office (GRO) website, two of them were too young to be this Thomas. The remaining two were in the right age bracket of between 40 and 50 years of age at death, in 1845 and 1846. I now needed to establish which one it was!  

I now turned my search to the Ancestry website to look at burials in Somerset. The parameters that were searched were the name of Thomas Alford, who died +/- 1 year around 1845 in the county of Somerset. Two matches were returned, with one being a Thomas Alford of Shepton Mallet being buried in Northover, Somerset. The entry was as follows [27] 

However, the two GRO death indexes I located in the county of Somerset were in the wrong quarters and years for them to be the right match for this burial. Was his death not registered or been incorrectly indexed? Or is the burial record wrong? I guess that this will just have to be one of those little mysteries for now as I do not have a copy of either of the death certificates that might prove or disprove my findings. So I am going to go with the information from the burial record that this is the Thomas Alford connected to this family tree and that his year of birth is about 1799 instead of being born in about 1811 according to the 1841 Census. This is due to an adults age being around up or down depending on their actual age when it was taken so this will not narrow us down to an approximate year. Also we do not know where Thomas was born, only that it was not in Somerset as his 1841 Census entry records that he was not born in the county.  

So, here is the Alford Family Tree updated to include all the family that we discovered from this week's research:

In my next update, I will investigate Mary's life after Thomas died and return my focus to Martha Groves (nee Alford) and her family. In the meantime, I hope that you have enjoyed learning about Martha's parents and siblings as much as I have. It would be great to hear from you via the comments section on this blog or via my facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lucythecrescentops/ - If you would like to see the tree that I have been building for my One Place Study of 1 The Crescent, it is on ancestry.co.uk under 1 The Crescent Taunton One Place Study.  

[1] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Births GRO Reference: 1838 S Quarter in Shepton Mallet Union, Volume 10, Page 422
[2] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Births GRO Reference: 1840 J Quarter in Shepton Mallet Union, Volume 10, Page 432
[3] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Births GRO Reference: 1842 M Quarter in Shepton Mallet Union, Volume 10, Page 467
[4] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Births GRO Reference: 1843 D Quarter in Shepton Mallet Union, Volume 10, Page 441
[5] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Births GRO Reference: 1845 D Quarter in Shepton Mallet, Volume 10, Page 426
[6] "England Marriages, 1538–1973 ", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NVGY-G61 : 13 March 2020), Mary Ann Galpin in entry for Thomas Alford, 1830.
[7] Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1914 ~ Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Reference Number: D\P\she/2/1/17 page 179
[8] Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1914 ~ Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Reference Number: D\P\she/2/1/17 page 150
[9] Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1914 ~ Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Reference Number: D\P\she/2/1/17 page 128
[10] Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1914 ~ Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Reference Number: D\P\she/2/1/17 page 101
[11] Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1914 ~ Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Reference Number: D\P\she/2/1/17 page 79
[12] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1906 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 2/1 - 2/4 page 88
[13] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1906 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 2/1 - 2/4 page 60
[14] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1906 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 2/1 - 2/4 page 45
[15] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1906 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 2/1 - 2/4 page 27
[16] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1906 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 2/1 - 2/4 page 4
[17] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-2010 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 4/1-7 - 5/1 page 167
[18] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-2010 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 4/1-7 - 5/1 page 60
[19] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-2010 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 4/1-7 - 5/1 page 98
[20] Ancestry.com. Dorset, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-2010 ~ Dorset History Centre; Dorchester, England; Reference Number: PE/SH: RE 4/1-7 - 5/1 page 186
[21] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Deaths GRO Reference: 1841 S Quarter in Shepton Mallet, Volume 10, Page 271
[22] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Deaths GRO Reference: 1845 M Quarter in Shepton Mallet, Volume 10, Page 359
[23] General Register Office (https://www.gro.gov.uk/) - Deaths GRO Reference: 1841 S Quarter in Shepton Mallet, Volume 5C, Page 381
[24] Ancestry.com 1841 England Census - The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1841 England Census; Class: HO107; Piece: 963; Book: 11; Civil Parish: Shepton Mallet; County: Somerset; Enumeration District: 2; Folio: 23; Page: 5; Line: 1; GSU roll: 474606
[25] Ancestry.com 1851 England Census - The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1851 England Census; Class: HO107; Piece: 1933; Folio: 470; Page: 6; GSU roll: 221092
[26] http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/ - Pigot and Co.'s Royal National and Commercial Directory and Topography of the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Oxfordshire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and North and South Wales .... 1844. [Part 2: Hampshire to Wiltshire, and Wales] - page 274
[27] Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-1914 ~ Somerset Heritage Service; Taunton, Somerset, England; Reference Number: D\P\north/2/1/7 page 11