William and Frederick: Case 2

Who was Alice’s father?

In William and Frederick: Case 1 I went on the trail of my elusive 2x great grandfather. By piecing together a variety of sources I was able to show that he used multiple names throughout his entire life — including ‘Fred/Frederick Homan’, ‘William Homan’ and ‘William Taylor’. And after exploring his upbringing in a blended family and his adult relationships, I was able to suggest reasons for these aliases. I was also able to use DNA to substantiate my research.

By a strange coincidence, my husband also has a 2x great grandfather for whom there are records of multiple first and last names, including William and Frederick! I’ve attempted to make sense of the confusing paper trail to try to establish if this was another case of one man using several aliases, or multiple men. And if it was more than one, who was my husband’s biological ancestor? I’m still working on this conundrum, but I invite you to come along with me on my research journey so far. In this blog, I’ll be presenting the documentary and DNA evidence I’ve gathered to date, and sharing a theory of what might have happened — and I would love to hear your thoughts!

Although this blog sets out to solve the puzzle of a father’s identity, I also want to tell the story of the people at the heart of this complicated situation — my husband’s 2x great grandmother, Amelia, and her children. At their lowest point, Amelia and her two little daughters were admitted to the Workhouse. The youngest, just 18 months old, was my husband’s great grandmother, Alice.

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The search for Alice’s origins

My husband’s great grandparents, John James ‘Jack’ MORTIMER and Alice Ada CARTER, married in Hull during the First World War. The marriage certificate stated that Alice’s father was Frederick Carter, a Coachman.

I knew that Alice was born in 1887 in Bermondsey. I was able to find an Alice Ada Carter in the 1901 census in Camberwell (next door to Peckham), who fitted the bill. She was 13, born in Bermondsey, and her father was Frederick William Carter. Other family members were Frederick’s wife Amelia, and his daughters Rose Minnie, 17, and Florence Ethel, 9. 

I was fairly confident this was the right family, but Frederick’s occupation was Night Watchman rather than coachman, and he had a middle name that wasn’t included on the marriage certificate. Since Carter is a common name, I wanted to be sure. I hoped that a birth certificate for this Alice Ada Carter would match the birth date of my husband’s great grandmother Alice Ada Mortimer in the 1939 Register (22 June 1887). Frustratingly, I was unable to find a birth registration for Alice, or for her older sister Rose. But their younger sister Florence’s birth record showed that their mother Amelia’s maiden name was HATTON.

Using the FreeBMD site I found two births for an Alice Ada born in St Olave Southwark district (which included Bermondsey) in Q2 and Q3 1887: Alice Ada CROSS and Alice Ada SNELLGROVE. I was then able to use the GRO database to look at the mother’s maiden name for these two births, and found that Alice Ada Cross had the MMN of Hatton. The birth certificate showed that her birthdate matched that of my husband’s great grandmother. So I had found the right Alice, but she had been born with the surname Cross, not Carter, and her father was William Cross, an Engineer. Had her mother, Amelia, been married before?

I discovered that 12 years before Alice’s birth, Amelia Hatton had indeed married a Mr Cross, but rather than an engineer called William Cross, as per Alice’s birth certificate, Amelia’s husband was Frederick James Cross, a painter.

In 1891, 4-year-old Alice was was recorded in the census as ‘Alice A Carter’, living with her parents Frederick and Amelia Carter in Peckham. I therefore assumed that Amelia had been widowed and remarried between Alice’s birth in June 1887 and the census in April 1891. However, I was unable to find a marriage for Amelia Cross (or Hatton) and Frederick Carter then, or at any other date.

And the more I delved into the family, the more perplexing it got. I could find no evidence for an engineer called William Cross, and had little to go on to find out more about Frederick Carter and Frederick Cross. It didn’t help that Frederick Carter had numerous completely different occupations and gave inconsistent ages and places of birth.

To tackle this type of family history puzzle, I find it really helpful to be very methodical – to pull together as much evidence from records as possible and organise it chronologically. Below, I’ve shared information about this complex family, through three phases of the family’s development. In each phase, I have summarised key events. For those of you who enjoy the nitty gritty I’ve also included a chronological list of records, and in each record, the name, age, occupation and place of birth of the father is highlighted in red.

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1875-1882: Amelia and Frederick James Cross

A few months after marrying in Islington in early 1875, Amelia and Frederick Cross had a son, Edwin, in Ware, Hertfordshire. I believe Frederick had connections in that town. Two more children were then born in London (Ernest in 1877 and Stephen in 1880) but by the spring of 1881, Frederick and Amelia seem to have been living separately (though possibly only 2 miles apart). Meanwhile, their first two sons, Edwin and Ernest, were alone in Ware Union Workhouse — at just 3 and 5 years old. Had they been taken into care for their safety? Or did their parents take them there out of desperation?

Amelia may have spent time in Fulham Road Workhouse before the death of their third child, Stephen, in 1882, just before his second birthday.

Records:

• 3 Feb 1875, St David’s, Barnbury (Islington): marriage of Amelia HATTON, 20 and Frederick James CROSS, 21, a painter. Frederick’s father was William CROSS, a coachman.
• 25 May 1875, Ware, Hertfordshire: birth of Edwin George Fred CROSS.
• 25 July 1875, Christchurch, Ware, Hertfordshire: baptism of Edwin George Fred CROSS to Frederick James CROSS, painter and Amelia CROSS.
• Q1 1877, Islington district: birth registration of Ernest Arthur CROSS.
• 15 July 1880, West Ham registration district: birth of Stephen John CROSS.
• 15 August 1880, St Saviour’s, Walthamstow: baptism of Stephen John CROSS to Frederick James CROSS and Amelia CROSS.
• 3 Apr 1881 (1881 census), 15 Watson St, South Hornsey: Amelia CROSS, dressmaker, 26, married, b. Essex; [Stephen] John CROSS, ? months. No husband present. Two miles away, at 27 Wynford Rd, Islington, a Frederick CROSS, carman, 28, b. London, was enumerated as a married lodger, with no wife present. Although not a painter, could this be Amelia’s husband? In the same census, Edwin CROSS and Ernest CROSS were in the Ware Union Workhouse, aged 5 and 3.
• 23 August 1881, Fulham Road Workhouse: Discharge from workhouse of Emily CROSS, 25; Could this be Amelia? If so, she wasn’t with her infant son Stephen.
• 9 June 1882, 25 Spenser Road, South Hornsey: death of Stephen John CROSS, aged 1 year and 11 months, son of Frederick James CROSS, painter; cause of death was measles and pneumonia (buried Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington).

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1884-1889: Amelia and Frederick James/William Cross

In about 1884 Amelia relocated to south London, and that year she registered the birth of a child in Greenwich: Rose Minnie Cross, daughter of Frederick James Cross, a Builder. But the following year she registered the birth of her daughter Alice with the father William Cross, an engineer, and that same father’s name and occupation were recorded in the baptism register. The occupation of engineer is specific, and different from any occupations recorded for Frederick Cross or Frederick Carter, suggesting a real and distinct person, but I have been unable to find anyone called William Cross in the 1881 or 1891 census with that occupation.

Amelia and her daughters spent time in more than one workhouse in 1888 and 1889, and the reason given by Amelia for their predicament was desertion by her husband, which had left them destitute.

Within the Poor Law collections held by The London Archives that have been digitised in Ancestry, a few have been indexed (primarily admission and discharge registers), but many have not, and these unindexed collections can be a treasure trove of information. In the collections London, England, Selected Poor Law Removal and Settlement Records, 1698-1922 and London, England, Poor Law and Board of Guardian Records, 1738-1926 I was able to find more records about Amelia and her daughters. A settlement examination of several pages from 1888 revealed that although Amelia had been residing in Camberwell since the prior year, it was not long enough to have secured settlement there. She had previously lived in the parish of Deptford in Greenwich Union for ‘upwards of three years’, at more than one address, and she was still the responsibility of that Union. An order was then issued for Amelia, Alice and Rose’s ‘removal’ to Greenwich — a reminder of how little control Amelia had over her own life, even when she was without a partner.

Amelia’s predicament reminds me of the story behind one of the pictures of the ‘Spitalfields Nippers’ — very poor East-End children who were photographed in the early 1900s. It shows two young girls of similar ages to Rose and Alice when they were admitted to the workhouse, and is the featured image I’ve chosen for this blog. Their mother, Annie, had been in a relationship that had produced 8 children, half of whom had died, and she had been abandoned by her partner. One of her boys had been taken away and placed in a workhouse. You can learn more about the image at the end of this blog.

It has been very challenging tracing Frederick Cross before or after his relationship with Amelia. However, a possible candidate is the Frederick Cross who was living in Ware in 1871, aged 17, an Ag Lab. He was baptised in Stanford, Norfolk in 1853 (now one of the deserted ‘battle churches‘), the son of William Barton Cross (a labourer, not a coachman) and Eliza (née BOWERS). His mother remarried to Edward BOUTLE in 1867. As well as the Ware connection, Frederick’s step-father was a house and barge painter, so Frederick could have learned that trade from him. Eliza and Edward were living just outside Ware in 1881, so if this is the right family, why did they not take in her grandchildren, Ernest and Edwin?

Records:

• 10 March 1884, 73 Napier Street, Greenwich district: birth of Rose Minnie CROSS; father is Frederick James CROSS, builder.
• 22 June 1887, 189 Drummond Road, Bermondsey: birth of Alice Ada CROSS, my husband’s great grandmother; her father was William CROSS, engineer.
• 31 July 1887, Clare College Mission church, Bermondsey: baptism of Alice Ada CROSS to William CROSS, engineer, and Amelia CROSS, of 189 Drummond Road, Bermondsey. 
• 20 March 1888, Brighton Road School, London: school admission of Rose M CROSS; sent from Camberwell Union; nearest relation is her mother, in Gordon Road [Camberwell] Workhouse.
• 20 October 1888, Greenwich Union: admission to Woolwich Road Workhouse of Amelia CROSS, 35, Rose CROSS, 4, and Alice CROSS, 1. Amelia and her children had been removed from Camberwell, since they were not settled there. She was the ‘wife of Frederick a decorator’ and they had been ‘deserted’.
• 28 May 1889, Greenwich Union: discharge from Woolwich Road Workhouse of Amelia CROSS, 34 and Alice CROSS, 18 months; they came from Norwood and were ‘destitute’. On 7 November Rose was re-admitted and sent to the Infirmary.

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1890-1916: Amelia and Frederick William Carter

By the time Rose Minnie started school in 1890, the school register recorded her as Minnie Carter, daughter of Frederick Carter. She was also baptised as Frederick Carter’s daughter the following year at the age of 7. In the 1891 census in Peckham, Frederick Carter was the head of the family, and Amelia was shown to be his wife. Two weeks later, Alice also started school, and her father was ‘Alfred Carter’.

Amelia and Frederick had three more children between 1892 and 1898, but only one, Florence Carter, survived. When Florence started school in 1897 her father’s name was given as ‘Fred Carter’. In 1901 the family was living in Camberwell.

I have not been able to find any definite records of Frederick William Carter before he came on the scene in 1890, as the personal information he gave varied significantly. He was said to be 35 in 1891 but only 38 in 1901. And he was born in either Ipswich, or Burnt Fen — both places are in Suffolk but 50 miles apart. He might have been the Frederick Carter who was a 21-year-old railway porter from Ipswich, lodging in Lewisham in 1881. Coincidentally, Amelia Hatton had three siblings who married Carters. Two of those Carters were the children of William Carter, a farmer in Comberton, Cambridgeshire. The other came from Aston in Hertfordshire. But neither of these Carter families seems to be a fit for Frederick.

Frederick had many different occupations over the years (seedsman, merchants clerk, clerk to seedsman, carman, night watchman, window cleaner, coachman). The change from a clerk to more manual occupations could be put down to a change in fortunes, although being a coachman was a skilled position and not something you could dabble in! I find the wide range of jobs rather implausible and more than a little fishy! It’s also worth noting that Frederick Cross was possibly a carman in 1881, and was the son of a coachman, and Frederick Carter also worked as a carman and coachman. Coincidence?

Amelia’s first-born sons, Edwin and Ernest, do not seem to have ever returned to live with their mother. They were were boarders together in Hoddesdon, Herts, in 1891. Ernest’s great granddaughter has told me that they had been told their mother had died of alcoholism. Ernest emigrated to Ontario in 1893 at the age of 16, as part of Britain’s ‘Home Child’ programme, while Edwin stayed in England.

Frederick Carter lived with his youngest daughter Florence in 1911 and was stated to be a widower, though I have not yet found Amelia’s death. After 1911, Frederick disappears from my view, although his daughter Alice seemed to think he was still alive when she married in 1916.

Records:

• 27 May 1890, Colls Rd School, Peckham: school admission of Minnie CARTER, b. 10 March 1884; father Frederick CARTER of 30 Loden Street.
• 25 March 1891, St Jude’s, Peckham: baptism of Rose Minnie CARTER to Frederick William CARTER, seedsman and Amelia CARTER of 50 Clifton Crescent, Peckham; Rose was 7 years old.
• 5 April 1891 (1891 census), 50 Clifton Crescent, Peckham: Frederick CARTER, merchants clerk, 35, b. Ipswich; Amelia CARTER, 34, b. ?, Essex; Rose M CARTER, 7, b. London New Cross, Alice A CARTER, 4, b. Bermondsey. In the same census, ‘Frederick’ [Edwin] CROSS, aged 16 and Ernest CROSS, 14, were boarders in Hoddesdon, near Ware.
• 27 April 1891, Colls Rd School, Peckham: school admission of Ada Alice CARTER, b. 22 June 1887; father Alfred CARTER of 50 Clifton Crescent, Peckham. [perhaps if he went by ‘Fred’, the clerk assumed he was an Alfred rather than a Frederick].
• Q1 1892, Camberwell district: birth registration of Florence Ethel CARTER.
• 10 January 1892, St Jude’s, Packham: baptism of Florence Ethel CARTER, b. 25 November 1891, to Frederick William CARTER, clerk to seedsman, and Amelia CARTER, of 50 Clifton Crescent.
• Q1 1893, Camberwell registration district: birth registration of Leonard CARTER.
• Q2 1894, Camberwell registration district: death registration of Leonard CARTER.
• 9 April 1895, Camberwell registration district: birth of Martha Eleanor CARTER.
• 18 April 1894, Camberwell Old Cemetery: burial of Leonard CARTER, aged 14 months.
• 11 November 1895, St Jude’s, Peckham: baptism of Martha Eleanor CARTER to Frederick William CARTER, carman, and Amelia CARTER, of 21 Honiton Street.
• 2 November 1897, Waller Rd School, New Cross: school admission of Florence Ethel CARTER, b. 25 November 1891; father Fred CARTER of 30 Loden Street.
• Q3 1898, Camberwell registration district: death registration of Martha Eleanor CARTER, aged 3.
• 7 July 1898, Southwark: burial of Martha Eleanor CARTER.
• 31 March 1901 (1901 census), 57 Evelina Rd, Camberwell: Frederick William CARTER, 38, Night Watchman, b. Burnt Fen, Suffolk [50 miles from Ipswich]; Amelia CARTER, 41, b. Romford, Essex, Rose Minnie CARTER, 17, b. Deptford, London; Ada Alice CARTER, 13, b. Bermondsey, Florence Ethel CARTER, 9, b. Camberwell.
• 26 December 1908, St Katherine’s, Rotherhithe: marriage of Rose Minnie CARTER to William Henry TAYLOR; Rose’s father was Frederick William Carter, window cleaner.
• 2 April 1911 (1911 census), 87 B Ewart Road, Forest Hill: Frederick William CARTER, 54, widower, window cleaner, b. Ipswich; Florence Carter and a lodger.
• 24 January 1916, Hull Registry Office: marriage of Alice Ada CARTER to John James MORTIMER; Alice’s father was Frederick William Carter, coachman.

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After 1911

I have been able to follow the next steps of three of Alice’s siblings:

• Ernest Cross settled in Ontario, Canada and I was delighted to find that my husband is a DNA match with his granddaughter, Cindy. She told me that sadly, Ernest lost touch with his older brother Edwin when he emigrated, and despite family members travelling to England to search for him, the brothers never saw each other again.
• Rose Minnie Cross/Carter married in 1908 but separated from her husband after 1911. In the 1921 census she was a musician, and the wife of a Bohemian musician (he was actually from Bohemia!) though they did not really marry until 1930.
• Florence Carter emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, where she married.

Ernest, Rose and Florence all had children, and this has resulted in valuable DNA data …

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DNA evidence

Ancestry DNA’s Thrulines feature has helped me to find matches between my husband and father-in-law and descendants of two of Alice’s siblings, Ernest and Rose. Descendants of Ernest Cross are all ‘half’ cousins; they include two predicted half 3rd cousins of my husband (sharing 30-54 cM) and a half 2nd cousin of my father-in-law (sharing 15 cM). I have only one match to a descendants of Rose Carter, which is a predicted [full] 2nd cousin of my father-in-law (sharing 60 cM).

Based on these estimated relationships, it appears that Alice and Rose had the same father (i.e. they were full siblings) but Ernest had a different father (i.e. he was Alice and Rose’s half brother).

If this is correct, I assume that Frederick James Cross was the father of Ernest, but who was the father of Alice and Rose? Was it the mysterious William Cross, or Frederick William Carter?

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A theory

My research suggests that a) Frederick Cross and Frederick Carter were two distinct individuals, despite having similar names, similar places and dates of birth, and some of the same occupations and b) that William Cross was a fictional character. However, I still don’t know the identity of my husband’s biological 2x great grandfather.

It’s clear that Amelia and Frederick Cross were unhappily married, and separated. Their separation and financial hardship presumably led to them giving up their two firstborn children. Amelia then had a relationship with another man, and Alice and Rose were born from that affair. Although Amelia initially passed Rose off as her husband’s daughter (at least in the official paperwork), she was unable to do so for Alice, so to give the illusion of legitimacy without the risk of stating the real father’s name, she fabricated a father’s name for Alice’s birth certificate and baptism. The name ‘William Cross’ could have been a combination of her married surname Cross and the given name of the biological father, or Amelia could have given the name of her father in law (though hopefully he was not the father!). I think it’s very possible that Frederick William Carter was Rose and Alice’s biological father, especially as William was his middle name.

After this ‘infidelity’, Frederick Cross deserted his wife (though they may in fact have been separated for several years already) and they ended up in the workhouse. Even if Frederick Carter was the father of Rose and Alice, he might not yet have been in a position to live with them or support them financially.

Amelia then met or moved in with a new partner, Frederick William Carter. They lived as husband and wife, although she remained legally married to Frederick Cross. Even if Frederick Carter was not Alice and Rose’s biological father, he became their de facto father, even being named as such at Rose’s baptism.

This narrative seems plausible but I am still far from getting to the bottom of this case. Searching for common names in London is always a challenge, but the two Fredericks seem especially slippery. Was there something more murky going on than an affair and illegitimate births? Perhaps the numerous unrelated occupations and inconsistent names, ages and places of birth were designed to evade detection, not of an unmarried couple, but of criminal activities?

My DNA analysis suggesting there were two separate fathers is certainly not conclusive, and at least one other researcher on Ancestry believes that Frederick James Cross and Frederick William Carter were one and the same person — just like my example in Case 1. But what do YOU think?

There are quite a few avenues of research I would like to pursue when time and finances allow, including looking at more workhouse records, ordering more birth, marriage and death certificates, and reaching out to more DNA matches. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas, do drop me a line at ckirkancestors@gmail.com or post a comment below. Thank you!

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Bonus mystery

I have no photographs of the mysterious Fredericks and no known photo of Amelia. However, in two family group photos that include a middle-aged Alice Mortimer in the 1920s/30s, she is with an older unidentified woman (as well as some other mystery women). Her mother-in-law had died in 1912, so could this be her mother, Amelia? Amelia would have been about 70 in 1924, so this probably doesn’t fit. But I am still searching for Amelia’s death …

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Spitalfields Nippers: Annie and Nellie Lyons

An amateur photographer, Horace Warner, captured haunting photographs of some of London’s poorest children in the early 1900s for use in fundraising by a Quaker mission. The images highlighted their extreme hardships but also their character and resilience. Some of these images have become iconic, including the photograph of Annie and Nellie Lyons that I have chosen to be this blog’s featured image. It comes from my own copy of Spitalfields Nippers (Spitalfields Life Books, 2014).

The excellent Spitalfields Life blog has posted an account given by Annie and Nellie’s mother of her situation:

“My name is Annie Daniels, I am thirty-five years old. My occupation is a street seller. I was born in Thrawl St to Samuel Daniels and Bridget Corfield. Around fifteen or sixteen years ago, I met William Lyons who is thirty-eight years old, at this time he was living at 4 Winfield St. He is a street hawker. The last known address for William is Margaret’s Place. I have had eight children: Margaret born 1888 in Beauvoir Sq. William born 1889 in Tyssen Place. Joseph born 1891 in Whiston St. William born in Tyssen Place died. James died in Haggerston Infirmary. Annie born in 1895 at Hoxton Infirmary. Lily born April, one year and four months ago at Baker’s Row. Ellen born April, one month ago at Baker’s Row. About ten or eleven years ago, I had a son called John. He was sent away around seven years ago to the Hackney Union House. My eldest daughter Margaret is living with my sister Sarah and her husband Cornelius Haggerty. My son Joseph is living with my other sister Caroline and her husband Charles Johnson. I have moved from various addresses over the last ten years and have been lodging with my sister Mary for three years in Dorset St previous to Lily’s birth.”

See some more of the Spitalfields Nippers photographs in The Guardian