John Henry CARTER and his wife Mary Jane had two children in 1895. When they were baptised, the Wesleyan minister made register entries to the effect that Robert Wilfred entered the world on 11 October and his sister Mabel Ann showed up about five weeks later. Kath noted this oddity in Filey Genealogy & Connections.

I don’t know what the minister was doing really – there is no way that the Carter’s could have had one baby in Nov 1895 and another in October 1895 – perhaps one of them was in 1893? and he couldn’t read his own writing. Apparently, they wrote some records on slips of paper and then rewrote them into the record books.  Will need to check with St Catherine’s index for accurate dates.

This note is from pre-Internet times. I wondered how long it would take to find “the truth”.

Not long. The two “siblings” had different parents. I would like to see the original register!

A source on the Shared Tree shows that Robert Wilfred’s birth date is recorded on his death registration – and his parents are William and Mary Ann (born GLAVES). He married, worked the land, and reached a good age. I don’t know if he had any children with Grace. (I would like to know more about her TICKELPENNY forebears.)  

I haven’t been able to fit all the puzzle pieces of Mabel’s childhood together. Some form a picture of John Henry marrying a Hull girl, Mary Ann CROSS. It is possible that Mabel was born in Hull and her birth registered in Scarborough, making sense of a Filey baptism. But the child and two younger sisters are fatherless on census night 1901 and the death of John Henry at 31 is not registered in Sculcoates until the September quarter of that year. More investigation is required.

For information about the poor girl who died on this date, see Crushed.

Abstract 107 · Evron Centre