The Muddled Trail of Mary Ann

According to the birth certificate of my great-grandmother, Emily Beckwith, the maiden name of my great-great-grandmother was Mary Ann Butler.¹ Emily was the second child of Zachariah and Mary Ann Beckwith, the oldest being Mary Ann Beckwith born 1865.²

The first muddle occurs in the maiden names given in the birth registrations of Zachariah and Mary Ann’s children. For Mary Ann, Emily, Alfred (1881) and Zachariah (1883) the mother’s name is given as Mary Ann Beckwith formerly Butler.³ Importantly, on the certificate of Martha Ann (1879) the mother’s name is given as Mary Ann Beckwith late Stevens formerly Butler.⁴ This indicates the existence of a previous marriage, supported by the list of names in Emily’s Bible, which includes Joseph Stevens (1868).⁵ Confusingly in the registrations of the last two children, Arthur (1886) and Elizabeth (1888), the mother’s name is given as Mary Ann Beckwith formerly Fletcher!⁶

End paper of Emily Beckwith’s Bible⁵

The next muddle is in the Beckwith-Stephens marriage certificate.⁷ The bride, who quite correctly gives her name as Mary Ann Stephens, is mistakenly listed as a spinster. Therefore, as far as the clerk is concerned, her father’s name must be James Stephens, mustn’t it? Thankfully the “James” is correct.

Mary Ann and Joseph both appear in the 1871 census with a younger child, George (~1870), with Mary Ann giving her marital status as “widow”.⁸

In the birth certificates of Joseph and George their parents are given as George Stephens/Stevens and Mary Ann Butler.⁹ George senior’s death had occurred on 22nd March 1871, just before the census.¹⁰ But when did Mary Ann marry George Stevens? Given that Mary Ann was born in 1847 and was twenty when she gave birth to Joseph one would expect it to be a year or so before Joseph’s birth.¹¹

It turns out that George Stevens married Mary Ann Butler (daughter of James Butler) on 27th July 1843, when Mary Ann was sixteen (though she gave her age as eighteen).¹² The witnesses were from George’s family. There were no children prior to Joseph in 1868 (shortly after the death of James Butler).¹³ Did James drag Mary Ann back to her childhood home? We’ll never know, but it is possible that George started working for James before James’ death as on Joseph’s birth certificate his father’s trade is given as chairmaker (which was James’ trade).¹⁴

You won’t find Mary Ann Butler or James Butler in the 1861 or 1851 censuses. The family appears under the surname “Fletcher”.¹⁵ Throughout this time the family still registered their children using the surname “Butler”.¹⁶ The reasons behind this are rather involved and will have to wait for another blog, but it seems that somehow the surname “Fletcher” caught up with Mary Ann again, later in her life.

St Leonard, Shoreditch photographed by John Salmon 27th September 2011

The final muddle in Mary Ann’s trail is a clerk’s error in her baptism entry. St Leonard Shoreditch was a busy, crowded parish in the nineteenth century. The clerks were entering multiple entries in multiple registers every day and made mistakes. When entering James Butler’s surname the clerk seems to have accidentally repeated his given name. Thus on 4th April 1847 Mary Ann daughter of James and Fanny Maria “James” was baptised having been born on 1st March.¹⁷ Apart from the surname this matches Mary Ann birth certificate details.

The documentary trail of my great-great-grandmother is muddled, but when pulled together all the parts fit neatly together like a jigsaw.

Sources

1. England, Bethnal Green Register Office, birth certificate for Emily Beckwith, born 10 Mar 1877; Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district
2. England and Wales, birth certificate for Mary Ann Beckwith, born 12 Mar 1875; citing 1c/267/450, Jun quarter 1875, Bethnal Green registration district, Church Bethnal Green sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
3. England and Wales, birth certificate, Mary Ann Beckwith, 12 Mar 1875, citing 1c/267/450, Jun quarter 1875, Bethnal Green registration district, Church Bethnal Green sub-district; England, Bethnal Green Register Office, birth certificate, Emily Beckwith, 10 Mar 1877; Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district; England and Wales, birth certificate for Alfred Beckwith, born 9 Sep 1881; citing 1c/261/144, Dec quarter 1881, Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district; General Register Office, Southport; England and Wales, birth certificate for Zachariah Beckwith, born 31 Oct 1883; citing 1c/258a/269, Dec quarter 1883, Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
4. England and Wales, birth certificate for Martha Ann Beckwith, born 1 Jul 1879; citing 1c/288/393, Sep quarter 1879, Bethnal Green registration district, Town sub-district; General Register Office, Southport.
5. Emily Beckwith’s Bible - The Holy Bible (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1890)
6. England and Wales, birth certificate for Arthur Beckwith, born 17 Jan 1886; citing 1c/261/86, Mar quarter 1886, Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district; General Register Office, Southport; England and Wales, birth certificate for Elizabeth Beckwith, born 4 Mar 1888; citing 1c/264/213, Mar quarter 1888, Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
7. England and Wales, marriage certificate for Zacharia Beckwith and Mary Ann Stephens, married 25 Dec 1875; citing 1c/839/177, Dec quarter 1873, Bethnal Green registration district; General Register Office, Southport
8. 1871 census of England, London, Bethnal Green, folio 96, page 39, Mary A Stevens; digital images, Ancestry Information Operations Company, Ancestry Australia (http://www.ancestry.com.au/ : accessed 29 Apr 2006); citing PRO RG 10/491
9. England and Wales, birth certificate for Joseph Charles Stephens, born 9 Jan 1868; citing 1c/267/270, Mar quarter 1868, Bethnal Green registration district, Green sub-district; General Register Office, Southport; England and Wales, birth certificate for George Stevens, born 23 Mar 1870; citing 1c/279/102, Jun quarter 1870, Bethnal Green registration district, Church sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
10. England and Wales, death certificate for George Stevens, died 22 Mar 1871; citing 1c/249/30, Mar quarter 1871, Bethnal Green registration district, Church, Bethnal Green sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
11. England and Wales, birth certificate for Mary Ann Butler, born 1 Mar 1847; citing II/564/233, Jun quarter 1847, Whitechapel registration district, Spitalfields sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
12. England and Wales, marriage certificate for George Stevens and Mary Ann Butler, married 27 Jul 1863; citing 1c/596/369, Sep quarter 1863, Bethnal Green registration district; General Register Office, Southport.
13. England and Wales, death certificate for James Butler, died 26 Oct 1867; citing 1c/225/288, Dec quarter 1867, Bethnal Green registration district, Town sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
14. England and Wales, birth certificate, Joseph Charles Stephens, 9 Jan 1868, citing 1c/267/270, Mar quarter 1868, Bethnal Green registration district, Green sub-district
15. 1861 census of England, Middlesex, Bethnal Green, folio 70, page 42, James Fletcher; digital images, Ancestry Information Operations Company, Ancestry Australia (http://www.ancestry.com.au/ : accessed 8 Aug 2006); citing PRO RG 9/262; 1851 census of England, Middlesex, Bethnal Green, folio 376, page 30, James Fletcher; digital images, Ancestry Information Operations Company, Ancestry Australia (http://www.ancestry.com.au/ : accessed 8 Aug 2006); citing PRO HO 107/1542
16. England and Wales, birth certificate for Louisa Butler, born 28 May 1844; citing II/537/304, Sep quarter 1844, Whitechapel Union registration district, Spitalfields sub-district; General Register Office, Southport; England and Wales, birth certificate, Mary Ann Butler, 1 Mar 1847, citing II/564/233, Jun quarter 1847, Whitechapel registration district, Spitalfields sub-district; England and Wales, birth certificate for Charles Henry Butler, born 2 Apr 1849; citing II/625/621, Jun quarter 1849, Whitechapel registration district, Spitalfields sub-district; General Register Office, Southport; England and Wales, birth certificate for Catherine Butler, born 11 Sep 1851; citing II/73/119, Dec quarter 1851, Bethnal Green registration district, Town sub-district; General Register Office, Southport
17. St Leonard (Shoreditch, Middlesex, England), Parish Registers, "London Metropolitan Archives P91/LEN/A/01/Ms 7496/54, Register of baptisms 1846-1848,"  page 91, baptism of Mary Ann "James", 4 Apr 1847; digital images, Ancestry Information Operations Company, Ancestry Australia (www.ancestry.com.au : accessed 21 Nov 2009).