Week two of the challenge (see – I’m already behind!) has the theme King.
I started my family history, one family name I researched was Everard.
Here is my great grandfather George Everard in 1881, aged 21. He was living with his widowed mother Hannah in Boreham, Essex.
He was born there and later lived in nearby Danbury, where he was a gamekeeper and then a carter.
I had purchased a birth certificate, but the parents were wrong. Turns out there were two George Everards born in Boreham in 1860 and for a long time I couldn’t find the birth certificate for “my” George. (I eventually found a birth certificate for George. He was born on 28th February 1860, in Boreham, son of Hannah Everitt – no fathers name entered. He was baptised George Everett on 6th May 1860 in Boreham.)
I did have his marriage certificate, to Ellen Poulton, in 1887. This gives his father’s name as George King. This was obviously a clerical error!
I had gone further back and found the marriage of William Everard to Hannah Howard on 9th August 1845 and found the family in 1851 with daughters Frances and Caroline. William was a farm labourer in Boreham.
William and Hannah, plus other Everards (HO107/1776/362)
In 1861 Hannah (listed as Everitt) was a widow living with her father and brother. Frances (13) and Caroline (11) were there, together with George (aged 13 months)
By 1871 the daughters had left home and Hannah was now housekeeper to her brother. She now had three sons, George, Charles and Claude – she was still a widow.
George with his mother, uncle and brothers (RG10/1654/p2)
It seemed husband William had died somewhere before the 1861 census, but I couldn’t find a death or burial. And who was the father of Hannah’s three sons? George King?
There was a George King living in Boreham in 1841. Aged 20, he was a servant on the same farm as Diana King aged 50. They were on the page before the Hannah Howard.
In 1851 Diana King was still a servant in Boreham, and George was a farm labourer on a different farm there – age 35 and unmarried.
By 1861 Diana and George King are together in Great Leighs, Essex. They were mother and son. There was also a sister Elizabeth.
George King with mother and sister (RG9/1081/p4)
I can’t find George King in 1871, but in 1881 he is in Little Waltham, a 65 year old Agricultural Labourer, with his sister.
By 1891 he and his sister are in the Chelmsford Union Workhouse, aged 76. He died in 1896 and Elizabeth in 1900.
Hannah Everard also died in Chelmsford Workhouse on 18th October 1916. She was 89 and the cause of death was Senile Decay, Heart Failure (Fracture of Thigh, three weeks).
So did Hannah’s husband die or did he leave? (I have an idea but that will be another post)
Did she not marry George King because she knew her husband was still alive?
Could George King not marry because he had to look after his mother and sister?
If George King was only the father of George Everard, who fathered Charles and Claude and why were the three boys born five years apart?
For the record, when Charles Everard married in 1894 his father’s name was left blank and on Claude’s marriage certificate (1892) his father is given as William Everard (deceased).
So … should the surname of my great grandfather George be Everard, Everitt, Everett, Howard .. or King?
maddergenealogist 
Am interested to find out your idea on Hannahs husband and also who exactly was George King? And who was Georges real father? When we came back from England I also did research on that but never managed to find the answer to that question. Judy Forster, NZ
By: Judy Forster on January 27, 2015
at 6:41 am
Hello Judy
I don’t think we’ll ever know who George’s real father was. A DNA test might have given a clue, but I don’t think there are any surviving male descendants to test. Too many of us girls!
I think Hannah’s husband ended up in London with another wife and family, but as I said, I’ll blog about that another time!
Christine
By: maddergenealogist on January 29, 2015
at 4:13 pm
Not sure if you have located George King yet in the 1871 Census. I believe that he is incorrectly transcribed on Ancestry as aged 24 (born 1847) but the original image shows aged 54 (therefore, born 1817) with his sister Eliza King aged 59 (born 1812). George King is the Head of household, they were both born in Great Waltham, and they are living in Great Leighs. The same entry on the findmypast site appears to have been transcribed correctly, though!
Hope this helps. It does not appear possible to amend the age field on Ancestry, unfortunately.
By: Peter Thompson on May 10, 2015
at 10:00 pm
We have corresponded in the past concerning the Everard’s of Essex. I believe that your grandmother was the daughter of George Everard, who was the older brother of my direct ancestor Charles Everard from Boreham.
I don’t know if you have yet had any opportunity to view the entry for Charles Everard in the 1939 Register, but it has thrown up an interesting (and, to me, rather perplexing) situation!
Charles Everard is entered in the Register with a birthdate of 31 July 1869, living in Crown Lane Cotts, Mucking, THURROCK, a Widower, occupation that of Groom.
His death certificate (in my possession) in Thurrock (Sub-district Grays) in 1950 has him as aged 80, a Hunt Groom (Retired). Both of these facts tie in very well with his entry in the 1939 Register. So far, so good!
I also have in my possession an undertaker’s Memorial Card issued when Charles’s wife Elizabeth died in Mucking in July 1939 (just two months before the 1939 Register was compiled). Her address as printed on the Memorial Card was stated to be Crown Lane, Mucking. This, also, ties in very well with Charles’s address in the 1939 Register. Again, so far, so good!
The big difficulty I have with the revelation of Charles’s actual birthdate in the 1939 Register is this:-
It is the only occasion I have come across, during my 45 years of research, that I have found a precise written record of his date of birth. I should be overjoyed! As his birth was not formally registered (he appears to me to be illegitimate) I had thought it most likely that the baptism entry at Hatfield Peverel (the adjoining parish to Boreham) on 8 November 1868 for EVERETT (mother named Hannah) could be the appropriate entry for Charles. I had always thought it likely that he was, in fact, born sometime between 1865 and 1868. The mother named Hannah in the Baptism Register would, I assume, be Hannah Everard (nee Howard). Her husband William Everard seemed to go ‘missing’ from Boreham in about 1852, and it’s not really known what happened to him thereafter!
However, my joy very soon turned to confusion. I currently have in my possession a birth certificate for a Charles Everard (born 31 July 1869) and also his death certificate (died 27 December 1869, aged 5 months). These are both very clearly in respect of one and the same person. The father of this particular Charles is George Everard, and the mother is Hannah (nee Lee). I have been well aware of all these Everard’s for many years, and have previously added Postems to their appropriate BMD entries on the FreeBMD site. You will note that the birthdate of ‘my’ Charles Everard, as recorded in the 1939 Register, corresponds exactly with that of the Charles Everard who died as an infant in Boreham on 27 December 1869!
So, I wonder what’s going on here? Whilst it’s clear to me that ‘my’ Charles Everard was almost certainly an illegitimate and unregistered birth, how was it that he came to be raised in the belief that his birthdate was actually 31 July 1869, when it very obviously could not have possibly been so? There seems to me to be an element of fraud and subterfuge here, and I guess that both Everard families were maybe involved in some kind of deception!
I wonder if you might have any thoughts about this situation yourself. I’d be very interested to hear them, if you have the time.
By: Peter Thompson on March 1, 2016
at 7:54 pm