There is a curious mismatch between the birth registration of Louisa Florence LING and the date of her parents’ marriage. The birth was registered in the June Quarter of 1878, with the Mother’s Maiden Surname given as MINORS. The marriage of Robert Ling and Emma Minors was not recorded by the authorities until the last quarter of 1880.

The 1881 census enumerator in Clerkenwell was derelict in his duty. Mrs Ling and her daughters suffered the same fate as most of their neighbours in being given first name initials. Louisa Florence is “F”. Later records would indicate that her birth names had been reversed. She would marry and be forever remembered as Florence Louisa.

The name change has flummoxed at least one online tree grower. In that parallel pedigree, George Simmons CAMMISH is married to a Yorkshire lass, Louisa Florence Ling from Lockwood. As already indicated, “F” first saw light in the Great Wen. I have no idea why she left the capital city but at the beginning of the new century she is in Filey. A journey of 200 miles brought her to the romantic attentions of a Filey grocer. She married George in St Oswald’s Church on 15 October 1902. The register shows her father to be deceased and, in life, a cigar maker. This was his occupation in 1871, when he was 19, but ten years later he is a draper. He died aged 38, when Florence was just twelve.

Florence and George did not have children of their own. The 1911 Census shows that they had adopted Beatrice Annie DREWSE, born in York three years before they had married. Beatrice is Mrs HUTCHIN when her adoptive father dies.

Harrison Cammish is George’s nephew, son of eldest sister Susannah, but he is not yet represented on the FamilySearch Shared Tree. (There is a Harrison Cammish with an ID, LV7T-NF1, but nothing else.) Find George and Florence here.

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