Case Study Two
In my second case study I will be focusing on my search for the birth certificate of Florence May Bannister, my great-grandmother. Although Florence had been alive in living memory, my grandmother knew next to nothing about her mother, so I had very little starting information to go on in my search.
Florence May Bannister
The only information my grandmother could give me regarding her mother, apart from the image you can find to your right, was that she celebrated her birthday on the 5th April and was married to her father Harold Archer. Finding information after her marriage was not difficult, I soon discovered that Harold and Florence married in 1928 when Florence was aged 43 years and that Florence died in 1954 at the age of 66 years. These two records gave a rough birth date of between 1885 and 1888.
Florence and Harold’s marriage was seemingly strained from the start. Florence had been Harold’s housekeeper and had fallen pregnant with his child. It is my belief that Harold was forced into marrying Florence after the birth of my grandmother, probably by his father. Between 1928 and 1930 Florence and my grandmother would enter the workhouse at Burton upon Trent on two separate occasions and following the death of Harold’s father in 1931 would enter one last time. My grandmother was sent off to an orphanage while Florence would remain in the old workhouse building up until her death.
The search for Florence's birth
The initial problem I had with searching for Florence’s birth was that I had no idea where she was from. As she had been Harold’s housekeeper and did not marry until her mid 40’s, Florence may have spent most of her life as a domestic servant, and domestic servants could have travelled around a lot during the working career, so she could have been from anywhere. The only hint I had was her father had been called Henry Bannister and was a labourer.
The only Florence May Bannister born in the 1880’s was registered in the Lambeth Registration District in 1884. After some initial research I soon was able to rule this Florence out as her father was not called Henry. My grandmother did suggest that there was a possibility that her mother was Irish, but after an initial search of the Irish registration index’s I was unable to locate a Florence May Bannister born within my search frame.
After my initial frustrations I turned to the possibility that Florence May was not have been the name she was born with. Searching for just Florence Bannister I discovered that there were two births registered in the Burton upon Trent Registration District for a Florence in 1885 and 1887. Burton upon Trent was the local registration district for the area that Florence would eventual live, and more promising the birth in 1887 was to a daughter of a Henry Bannister, Brewery Labourer.
Researching the Florence Bannister born in 1887 lead to another discovery, both her parents had died before 1905 and Florence was an inmate in the Workhouse in 1911. When Florence found herself without a home after Harold had kicked her out did she return to the workhouse as she was already familiar with the institute? The only issue I had with this Florence was that once I had received the birth certificate I discovered that she had been born on the 31st March, not the 5th April.
Birth dates were not strictly remembered in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, so the birth date did not worry me that much, but I would remain unconvinced that this was my Florence until I took my DNA test and started to find cousins descended from Florence’s siblings. I had finally found proof that Florence May Bannister had been born as Florence Bannister and added the May later in life.
This is the great problem with family history, sometimes you can never be 100% certain that the person you are looking for is the person you have found. I was lucky to come across this issue early in my research, I did not have the possibility of tacking a DNA test I would eventually have found out the truth with the release of later census returns showing Florence later in life. When you get back to before 1837 you really do have to rely on gut instinct alone.
Want to know more?
If you would like to know more on taking a DNA test to aid in your research you can find out more on the first case study page.
Record Gallery
The below record gallery features images of the records outlined within this case study. Each image below can be clicked to view a much larger, more readable, image. Images marked with an asterisk (*) have been sourced from findmypast.co.uk.
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| Florence May Bannister's birth certificate |
Florence May Bannister's marriage certificate |
Florence May Bannister's death certificate |
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| *1891 census | *1901 census | *1911 census |