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| William and Ellen When William died of consumption in 1922 aged only 37 his wife was devastated. She was left alone with 5 small children the youngest only 5 weeks old. Seeing that all the people who would have know William would have past away long ago I decided to find out more of his wife Ellen Gilbert. I spent ages searching the records for their marriage certificate but came up with nothing. Having drawn a blank I went back to my original source to tell them of my discoveries. Whether or not I had jogged their memory I was informed that Ellen had married a guy by the name of Gilbert after William had died and that her maiden name was in fact Gertrude. Pen and note book in hand I went to the local Family History Centre to look up my findings. Another hour or so looking through the records and again nothing. This time I decided to talk to another relative of mine who told me that Ellen had changed her name as she had something to do with the Spanish Royal family and that her original name was Saki or Sacker. Again came another visit and still I couldn�t find a marriage certificate in either name so I looked at the birth register. After only a few minutes there it was. My grandfathers birth record with the mothers name of Sacker. It suddenly dawned upon me that William and Ellen weren�t married. A phone call to the relative confirmed it all.. Having found out the real name and spelling I decided to look into the Spanish Royalty story. I was told that because Ellen had become pregnant outside of marriage she had disgraced her family and had fled changing her name on the way. Not satisfied that this was the truth I hit the records again and discovered that Ellen�s father was a painter born in 1850 in Middlesex. After finding this out I decided to work my way forward and discovered that she had married a preacher by the name of Parris and then the Gilbert fellow. After that I decided I knew enough about my great grandmother but something still kept telling me to dig deeper, so I did. Doing some research into Parris I found a wedding record entry for a E Dudley and J Parris. Could it be that Ellen and William did actually marry before his untimely death. After all they had applied to emigrate to Australia. Watch this space. |