Cousin Bob and I have been working on getting our early Langfords right. Bob has cracked it and I've been re-inputting a few ('000s) of Langford rellies. And it was in search of their various sources that I was looking on FreeBMD for them, born between 1880 and 1890.
And there he was: an additional Freeman Langford. Ooo-er! A quick check on the "new" GRO indexes showed me that his mother's name was Quince. That's my great-grandmother, btw, my primary family.
So he fitted between William and Lilian, and clearly before the Freeman who came after Lilian. He wasn't christened in Stretham with his younger siblings so I used the CFHS new search. And found him being done in the Wesleyan Methodist in Ely..... along with John, Ellen, and Lilian.
Suspicion now abounding that there might be another sibling to fit into another four-year gap, I went back to the GRO indexes and found Kate, born in 1885. Another Kate? But my grandmother, Kate, wasn't born until 1889....!
So, brain fog lifting slightly, I realised that Freeman and Kate must both've died before their younger versions were born. No sign of them in the Ely district so, on a whim, I widened the search to all of England.
And there they were: 1886 in Sheffield. Sheffield? FMP gave me Kate's christening in the Cathedral in 1885, and another search found me "The Original Sheffield Indexers", who have kindly indexed various graveyards in the city. Success - Langford, Freeman (child, age 4) and Langford, Kate (child, 9m) buried five days apart in the City cemetery.
So now I'm very excited that I've found these two. And slightly boggled.....
More soon.
