Sound of REES brick wall crashing!

[Patrisia]

At last, after 5 years of searching, I have found my g.gr.mother Catherine REES! The problem was that I couldn't find her anywhere in 1871, and still can't.
She married g.gr.father William CARRINGTON in Lambeth in 1872, and returned with him to his home village of Smalley, DBY. Sadly, she died of child birth fever 6 weeks after my grandmother Kate was born in 1876.
All I had to go on was her father, named on her marriage certificate as John Rees, shoemaker, deceased; plus the family story, that when her father William also died, in 1883, grandmother Kate was sent to an aunt in North Wales. I found grandmother working in Broughton, Salford in 1891 and in Derby in 1901 but no amount of scouring of North Wales records came up with any clues.
Last week I found her on the 1851 Ancestry (sorry Rod, I just couldn't wait for the CD!) - in Carmarthen!

John Lewis Rees, bootmaker; wife Leah, son Frederick, born 1847, and daughter Catherine, born about 1850, and all born in Carmarthen.
Thanks to brilliant and speedy help from the Carmarthen record office, (I never could find a birth GRO index ref for her) within 2 days I had a birth certificate for Catherine Mary Rees. However, this North Wales connection still niggled - what if I still had the wrong one?
So I went back to Ancestry...........cont.

[Patrisia]

Cont.......I found her widowed mother Leah in 1861, living in St Margarets, Westminster, with her son Frederick, and a daughter Elizabeth, born about 1855. So at some point after 1851, John must have taken his family off to London, where Elizabeth was born and where he subsequently died (possibly in 1859) But no mention of Catherine.
So I trawled through the 1861, using every possible permutation and suddenly hit gold!
In the household of Alfred Stock, bootmaker of Rochester Row, Westminster, a few blocks away from Leah, was Mary Catherine Reece, age 11, servant, born Carmarthen, North Wales.

What with an English enumerator, an English head of household, and an 11 year old who had left Wales when she was probably no more than 5, Carmarthen appears to be in North Wales!

Hence the family story that Catherine Rees came from North Wales; now all I have to do is find this mythical aunt!
So the moral in the story is, never give up, use creative lateral thinking, and only half believe family stories!

[AnnB]

So the moral in the story is, never give up, use creative lateral thinking, and only half believe family stories!

Too true Patrisia, I think that's how I've found a good 50% of my lot
May all our brick walls be so successfully demolished

Best wishes
Ann

[busyglen]

So glad you've broken down a brick wall Patrisia!!

Strangely enough, you ended up in Westminster, where I have only very recently (thanks to help here) found my gt.gt. grandfather. I thought he was dead by 1851 and never left Bucks. Just shows you.....they are an awkward lot aren't they? I bet they are up there laughing at us.....I wonder if they have left some clues somewhere??

Glenys

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

Patrisia! This is wonderful news and I'm so pleased for you. It's great to smash down isn't it ....... though better done with a sledge hammer instead of your head!