Help with Woolwich birth.Lookup?

[erica bauman]

I am searching for my great granfather William Rathbone born approx 1884.His marriage certificate says his father was George. I can not find his birth on BMD The census for 1891 has a William the same age born in Woolwich. Any ideas?
1891 census Camberwell Parish, St Emmanuel
George 36 born Walworth
Clara 27 born Woolwich
William 7
George 5 ALL born Woolwich
Charles 2
I would appreciate help and guidance!!

[Cary Christopher]

I searched the original birth registrations for the name Rathbone from 1881 to 1891 and could not find a single Rathbone birth in Woolwich so I would suggest they are clearly not from there. That would appear to be a census takers error.

I found a William Arthur Rathbone birth in Camberwell in 1886 but this appears to be the son of a Claude & Mary Rathbone living in Wandsworth in the 1891 census. They also had a few other children born in Camberwell that appear in the indexes.

Also, through FreeBMD I could not locate a single marriage between a George Rathbone and any Clara between 1880 and 1885 in the whole of England. It was a frustrating couple of hours but nothing turned up.

I checked the FreeBMD website and they have 100% of the marriages between 1880 & 1885 indexed from the original indexes. And the births between 1883 and 1886 are also almost 100% indexed.

You might to to that website (http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl) and look up the Rathbone births in the county of London for 1881 to 1891 and see if any matches come up. I see several of the names you are looking for but not in the places the census taker indicated in 1891.

If you have any additional information, I'll be glad to continue the quest, but it appears the children were not registered or were registered under the mother's maiden name. Or, possibly, Rathbone is not their real last name.

Cary C.

[erica bauman]

Thank you Cary. Is it possible that William and his siblings were not registered because his parents George and Clara were not married? if this is the case its probably highly unlikely that they could have been Christened instead? But would that have been an option in the 1880s? I do think Woolwich may be the correct place, but only because Georges brother John lived there.Is this a dead end????