Kathb
28-09-2008, 6:22 PM
Hi, everyone, I spent years trying to find details of my maternal ggrandfather. His name was Robert Davies and he showed up on the 1881 and 1891 England Census. On the 81 and 91 he clearly showed his birthplace as Spittle, Bowes Parish, Yorkshire. I spent many hours looking through parish records etc looking for him and his children to no avail. Just a few months ago another family history researcher found his grave plot for me. Another mystery then ensued as to who the first person in the plot was and I could find no connection and wondered if some poor family had sold the plot on to my family. Another month went by and my cousin was visiting the area of the cemetery and sent me a photograph of the grave. I glanced and put it in the family file that I keep. Only a few weeks ago, when sorting through the file I looked closely at the photograph of the headstone. There was the name Robert Davies with the following inscription: Robert Edmund Calvert Davies. I wondered why would you put all of this on a headstone when his wife and children were inscribed as just first and last names? Somehow I thought this rather odd. I then had a very suspicious thought. Was he Edmund Calvert. I followed up on this and traced him in the parish register for Bowes and also found the birth records for all of his children with the last name Calvert not Davies. I then traced him on the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census under the name Calvert and found the connection with the first person buried in the grave - it was a nephew of his. There are still huge mysteries to solve, as to why he changed his and his families names but still registered them with the correct last name. But I will continue. The message here is as usual, don't always believe what you see and look carefully at headstones they may have secret messages!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good Hunting
Kathb
Good Hunting
Kathb