From an "Aaaah" moment a couple of entries ago to an "Eugh" moment this time......
Aliases again, to protect the "innocent"...... Way back in the 1840s John stole two bushels of wheat (presumably to feed his family) and, having been apprehended by the long arm of the law, was duly transported for fifteen years.
Ann, his wife, stayed in the village with their five children and appears in the 1851 census with the notation "husband transported".... oh, and with a lodger called John. By 1861 she's lost the "husband transported" tag. And still has a lodger called John. The same John, by the way. In 1863, dear reader, she married the lodger. And wouldn't it be nice to think they lived happily ever after.....?
In 1869 Ann's youngest daughter, Hannah, has a daughter and moves away to deepest Lancashire with her. And then she marries a chap called John who, coincidentally, has the same surname as her mother's erstwhile lodger.
I didn't really connect the two until I entered a newspaper cutting about Ann & John this morning and then thought...."she didn't, surely?".
Oh dear, reader, I do believe she did. Lodger John, and husband to mother & daughter, does rather seem to be the same person; same age, same place of birth (small village). Further investigations are required, if only to dispel the mild feeling of queasiness....
More soon.
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