Genealogy Chat

Gloria, I have one lot who had four children and were man and wife on the census, BUT in fact did not marry until eleven years after the birth of the first child. They were not so straight laced these victorians eh?!! Fuzzy x

I am trying to find information about my great grandmother Isabella Tubbs, born 1857 in Headley Hants. I believe I have discovered that she was married, before she married my great grandfather, to a John Cawte who in the 1881 (Apr) census was 37. Isabella at that time had two sons, Peter aged 2 and William aged 10 months. William seems to have died very young because my grandfather was named William two years later. By April 1883 John seems to have disappeared from the scene because she became pregnant with my grandfather who was born in Dec. She was then known as Isabella Tubbs. I can find no record of her birth or marriage to my great grandfather (David) who in 1881 was single and living as head of the house with his mother, nephew and a boarder. So in a nutshell she lost one husband, found another and became pregnant in the space of two years. I have a photograph of her and she does not look like a woman to be messed with, although I believe she was very caring. One by-the-way, on the 1881 census she was down as a wife, to John, and a carpenter. Were my great grandparents 'living over the brush'? If this was the case I don't think Isabella would have bothered about public opinion.