You mean you might not be who you say you are?

The advantage (or disadvantage) of putting your family history research on the web is that any mistakes are there for all to see. Or they might not be a mistake after all!

In September 2005, Genes ReUnited introduced a new facility called Hot Matches. This generated potential matches in trees held by that site. One of them was for Frank Baker (my great grandfather) b 1857 Basford Nottinghamshire, a journeyman carpenter and joiner. I was on to it like a shot, suggesting that the contact look at the family history website I had just set up, for more information.

I then received a very nice message via my Visitors Book from Sheila saying that Frank Baker b 1857 etc was her great grandfather and that he had married someone completely different - a widow called Priscilla Harlow – in Clerkenwell in 1889. And that we must be cousins.

I had "inherited" this area of research from a cousin of my Dad's who had, in the 1980s, trawled through Nottingham records. There had been family discussions about the fact that no marriage certificate could be found for our Frank and Annie Langridge.  My mum (my dad was no longer with us) was explaining this to me and my future wife, who, laughing, said “you mean you might not be who you say you are?”.  Unlike my mum, I laughed too.

So when Sheila contacted me, quoting her great grandparent’s marriage register entry, I did seriously wonder if my dad’s cousin had got it all wrong. 

I consequently set off in pursuit to see if I could find another Frank Baker, born circa 1857 from the Nottingham area – there were indeed two of them: the Frank we thought was our man born in Carrington, Basford (parents John Baker and Phebe Woodward), and the other born in 1858 in Radford (parents Thomas Baker and Harriet Timms). If we were wrong about great grandfather Frank then I needed to look into the Radford one.

And I did extensively – and I started to feel it wasn’t him when I found he’d married a Mary Stevenson, and this feeling grew stronger when I discovered they had moved to Scotland, and he in fact died in Pollokshields, Glasgow in 1922.  

The one thing we could be sure of was that our Frank Baker died in Croydon in 1929 at the former workhouse infirmary.

So that meant I was back to where I started from. There was a possibility of course that the Frank Baker in a relationship with Annie Langridge was the same man as the Frank Baker who had married Priscilla Harlow, and he had led a double life, with 7 children shared across his two partners.  Intriguing, exciting, a bit fanciful, but not impossible! 

In the 1901 census there were two Frank Bakers, working as journeymen joiners and/or in the building trade born in Nottingham circa 1857, in the London area - at 26 Millman Street, Holborn with Priscilla and two daughters, and at 31 Strathmore Road, Croydon with Ann and five children. 

Frank and Priscilla 1901 census

Frank and Annie 1901 census

In 1891 there was just one such Frank Baker – with Pricilla and daughter plus Priscilla’s daughters from an earlier marriage at 10 East Street Holborn; Annie, described as married, was on her own at 36 St Hughs Road in Penge with her three eldest surviving children.

Frank and Priscilla 1891 census

Annie Baker 1891 census

So that’s where I had got to when the 1911 census was published: my known grandfather, Frank Baker, was at home at 265 Whitehorse Road, Croydon with Annie and their two youngest children. 

Frank and Annie Baker 1911 census

However the other Frank Baker was missing, leaving Priscilla with her two daughters at 21 Orde Hall St WC (Holborn).

Priscilla Baker 1911 census

But the 1911 census was the first England & Wales census where the householder completed the form and signed it.  So I could compare Frank’s signature on the census form with that on the marriage register.  Very similar!

Frank Baker writing  comparisons: Top witnessing Louisa's marriage 1911, under that his signature on the 1911 census form, then his completion of the 1911 census form, and, at the bottom, the signatures on the marriage register entry when he married Priscilla 1889

About five year’s later I did a DNA test and one of the descendants from Priscilla’s relationship with Frank was not only a match with me but also with two of my Baker second cousins in Australia. Further matches followed to reinforce the connection.

This outcome of course asked more questions, such as how did he get away with it? 

We do know that he described himself as a widower when he married Priscilla, so I would assume that’s how he introduced himself to her. That would also give him cover to visit his kids with his late wife (no doubt being "looked after by relatives" in Croydon) and also not contribute massively to the household fund with Priscilla (she appeared to be working as a Tailor all through this period).  And as a journeyman carpenter and joiner (and as a builder's foreman) he had “licence” to follow the work and stay away from home, close to where the latest job was.  But all the same this was a significant deception which could well have blown up on him; for example Frank’s second child with Priscilla, Annie, was baptised on the same day as Annie’s fifth child with Frank, Dorothy, was born.

His eventual bolt-hole was with Annie in Croydon.  The last documented contact I have been able to find with Priscilla’s side of the equation was when Frank was a witness at daughter Louisa’s wedding in May 1911 to William Steadman.  

Frank Baker making Propellors during the Great War

During the Great war he made aeroplane propellors in a works near Croydon Airport, and he and Annie lived in Brocklesby Road, South Norwood, Frank dying in 1929 at the Croydon Infirmary (formerly the Workhouse) in Eridge Road.  Annie moved to Pemdevon Road, Broad Green, Croydon, close to her eldest son (also Frank) and died in 1936.  

By 1921 Priscilla and family had moved away from Holborn to the Pentonville Road area, where she lived in the household of her younger daughter and her husband, plus her elder daughter and her children – Louisa had remarried, to Sydney Charles Goodall, after William Steadman died in unform (missing in action November 1916).  Priscilla later moved out to New Barnet where her daughter Annie lived, dying there in 1935 and identified as "widow of Frank Baker" on her death certificate.

The DNA matches I and my Frank Baker/Annie Langridge cousins have with the descendants of Frank Baker/Priscilla Aldridge via the children of Louisa from both her first and second marriages sealed the deal that, as Sheila suggested back in 2005, we were indeed cousins. I'm sorry that I took so long (about 15 years) to get there!

Tracing Annie Langridge and her antecedents

Every family tree researcher hits a brick wall of some sort, which requires a bit of devious thinking to get round.  One of the first  blockages I had to get around felt more of an assault course at the time - finding out the family background of my great grandmother Baker – Annie Langridge. This post reproduces, with minor adjustments to make it read right, a post from 2008 on my old Rootschat-hosted family history website.

Most photos of Annie Langridge (with husband Frank above) are as indistinct and as fuzzy as information about her

A cousin of my dad's did some pre-internet research about 40 years ago, and was unable to trace a marriage certificate for Frank and Annie. But she did find a birth certificate for Ann Langridge, born 1861, Croydon, daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Langridge.

What we did know was that in the effects of Annie's son, my grandfather Frank Baker #2, there were cemetery receipts for the people we assumed were Annie's parents - Fred Langridge and Amy Langridge. There were also "in memory" cards not just for the aforementioned Amy Agnes Langridge, but also for the wonderfully named Theophilus Taylor.

Because we couldn't find a marriage certificate for Annie and Frank Baker #1, all this led to a bit of conjecture (amused, in the case of my then wife, who repeatedly suggested that I might not be who I claimed I was).

This was compounded by the knowledge that there was some form of family dark secret. Frank #1 and Annie's youngest son, Fred, had overheard his parents discussing some issues in hushed tones one night. And then after Frank #1 had died, Annie apparently confided in a young girl who used to visit her, but the exact nature of the secret was unclear. The latter affair was played down as the ramblings of an insecure old lady – and any knowledge of what the indiscretion was has gone to the respective graves of Annie, my grandfather, and my great uncle Fred.

Frank Baker #1 was missing for the 1891 census; was he away doing some work, or had they fallen out? Would he have been a bigamist if he had married her? He would have been only in his early twenties when he got together with Annie, but he was a journeyman carpenter, starting out in Nottingham, so who knows what could have happened on the way to Croydon? (All this will be covered in another blog post).

In terms of Annie's parentage, we'd established that in 1871 and 1881 she was living with Frederick and Amy Agnes Langridge – listed as their daughter and only child. Indeed, Frederick, Amy and Annie lived at 4 Windmill Bridge, Croydon in 1881, and in 1885 that's where Frank #1 and Annie lived when my grandfather Frank Baker #2 was born. But no luck in the 1861 census. But the Ann Langridge born to Charles and Elizabeth Langridge was there in the 1861 census, but not in 1871, 1881 etc. Had Frederick and Amy adopted this child?

In order to find out if there was a trace between Charles Langridge and Fred Langridge, we needed to find out more about Fred's background. The 1871 to 1901 census's said he was born in Wrotham, Kent, around 1835.  So off I go to the Kent County archives – and returned empty handed in terms of a Frederick Langridge baptism in the 1830s in Wrotham, and no evidence of an appropriate Langridge family in the 1841 census in Wrotham. There was also no trace of a marriage of Fred Langridge in Croydon or similar to an Amy up to and including 1861.

I then made a breakthrough on the origins of Fred. It took the 1851 census to find the link. It now appears that Frederick was born in Worth, Sussex (Baptised March 1836), but his younger brother, William was the one born in Wrotham - in 1842. 

By this time I was convinced that the Ann Langridge born to Charles and Elizabeth Langridge was an entirely different Ann Langridge. Not least it was my great grandmother Annie who registered Frederick's death, and the cemetery certificates for both Fred and Amy were in the shoebox of family papers. As far as I could tell there was no obvious family link between Fred Langridge and Charles Langridge, who was born in Croydon circa 1832.

I'd originally assumed that Theophilus Taylor was a brother to Amy Agnes (Langridge). But I couldn't establish a link through Census and IGI research. So I guessed he must have just been a close family friend.

But having waded through the 1861, 1851 and 1841 census's for an Amy Agnes "X" born in Croydon about 1835-1845, I had pretty well given up hope on tracing Amy Agnes (Langridge) to her time before Fred. I remembered the Theophilus Taylor information, and thought I'd have one last try down that avenue. I decided to trace Theophilus's wife, Caroline. 

I established her maiden name was Coleman from the Free BMD records, and then sought a baptism for Colemans at Croydon Parish Church on the IGI. Bingo! Up popped not just Caroline (parents William Coleman and Ann) but also Amy Agnes Coleman (parents William Coleman and Ann), baptised 5 years earlier, plus lots of other Colemans too - sadly half of them didn't appear to survive infancy. Then I checked the Free BMD data for a marriage of an Amy Coleman and Bingo again there was a marriage to Fred Langridge in Croydon in 1863. Had it been there all along? Maybe not, I'm sure I'd checked, but this still raised a query about when Annie their daughter was born, supposedly in 1861 ie before Amy and Fred married..

As anything to do with Annie Langridge and her family/antecedents is clearly not straightforward, I drew a blank on the 1841 and 1851 census for William and Ann Coleman and their children. This was particularly disappointing for 1851 as I also had Amy and Caroline to search on. I then recalled that in the 1871 census, Caroline and Theophilus Taylor had an Ann Ford B 1811 Croydon, and described as "Mother", living with them. This was not Theophilus's mother, so could it be Ann Coleman, mother of Caroline and Amy Agnes? 

As the baptisms of Amy and Caroline's siblings appeared to stop in 1850, I searched for Ann Ford in the 1851 and 1861 census. Another Bingo moment! Here in 1861 was Ann Ford and daughters Amy Ford (19), Caroline (14) and Ann (2 months), with a chap, subsequently untraceable (with any certainty) in other census's, called Cain Ford, living in Croydon Old Town. But there is a death for Cain Ford in Southwark in 1868. And a check of the IGI brought up a baptism in 1861 in Croydon of Ann Coleman, daughter of Amy Coleman. Cue for a quick run around the room, punching the air!

So after all this, there were new doubts as to whether Frederick Langridge was the father of Annie Langridge. But she would have viewed him as her father. 

Subsequent research revealed:

• Amy Agnes Coleman registered Annie as Ann Coleman, not Ford, at her birth in 1861. No father was shown on the birth certificate. 
• Annie Langridge was baptised as Ann Langridge (as opposed to baptised as Ann Coleman, which she was in 1861) on 12 September 1869 at St James Croydon.
• Amy's mother's maiden name was Baines, according to Amy's 1842 birth certificate. 
• In the 1851 census, Ann Coleman (William must have by then died) was recorded, at Pitlake, Croydon, as Ann "Coulsdon", widow, along with children William, Henry, Amy and Caroline. [That Enumerator made other mistakes too - for example, round the corner he had mis-recorded Thomas Bransden, the Smith/Farrier.]
• It is unlikely that William Coleman and Ann were actually married - an Ann "Been" married William Cain Ford on 28 March 1853 in Croydon. On her death certificate, Ann was described as widow of Cain Ford, Labourer. Her death was reported by her daughter, Amy Langridge.

About 10 years after doing all this work, I discovered that I had DNA matches with people descended from Fred Langridge's family. Maybe he was Annie's father after all (or more intriguing, may be one of his brothers was her genetic father!)