William Henry HAMLET was baptised at Filey St Oswald’s, the fifth child of William Henry senior, a stonemason, and Nancy WILLIS, the daughter of a Filey fisherman. There is uncertainty online about who died just before the end of the First World War, father or son. Common sense says it must be junior – but the CWGC information is somewhat sketchy. Sapper Hamlet died “at home” and has a war grave and stone in Norwich.

Some common sense would come in useful when looking at William Henry senior’s position in his family. He should be considered the firstborn of John Hamlet and Emma TETLEY but the Shared Tree wants none of it.  

It is disappointing that the FamilySearch “overseer” is only concerned about the missing standardized birthplace. RootsMagic is triggered thrice the moment it sees the parents and their first two Shared Tree offspring.

Jonathan was born on this date to John HUNTER and Jane Elizabeth DRY and was baptised with his younger sister Mary Ann at the Ebenezer on 24 April 1879. He may have been the only one of eleven to reach adulthood and move away from Filey. In 1901 the census enumerator found him in servants’ quarters at Buckingham House, Headingley, employed as a butler. He married Mary Agnes MAGEE a few months later in Leeds and they had four children before 1911. Firstborn William Joseph died almost immediately but two were with their widowed mother in September 1939. They were living in Eccles, less than twenty miles from the birthplace of Mary Agnes. Frederick, 35, was a “press tool setter engineering” and  Theresa Margeretta, 28, a dressmaker. They had been without their father for twelve years.

Flight of Fancy 55 · Lion Cub