Festive Anniversaries

Sorry for the gap; you know what it's like . . . . . .

So, all festive'd up and almost ready to go, let's say happy birthday (155 today) to my second cousin, four times removed, Ellen Street. Born in Old Warden, near Biggleswade, she was the daughter of Thomas and Rebecca (nee Pates) and grew up in the village. By the age of sixteen she was, in common with many of her ilk, a straw plaiter (presumably this was something to do with the hat industry around Luton etc . . . . ?) and, in 1877, she married William Levitt.

Ellen & William had just the one daughter (Maud), born soon after the wedding (no, not that soon . . . ) and the family had moved to Kempston by 1891. I last "saw" them there in the 1901 census, when William was a brickie's labourer and no-one else in the household was gainfully employed.

The only other notable event today was the marriage, in 1856, of Martha Bullard (third cousin, three times removed) to John Foster, in Godmanchester. In 1891 John was working at Jesus College, Cambridge, as a "Gipp" (college servant) and they went on to have seven children.

John died at the age of 50, in 1878, and Martha became a Lodging House Keeper in Malcolm Street (off Jesus Lane) in Cambridge. Te only person I've managed to follow past 1891 is oldest daughter Agnes (born 1857) who went on to marry Alfred Broom and produce four sons - all before 1901, when the Brooms were living in Chesterton.

And that's it for this week, so I'll wish you a Merry Christmas and I'll be back after the weekend.