Thanks to everyone who helped me look for Henry. Just for the sake of this thread in the archives, I want to say that I have found the solution. As Hercules Poirot might have said, there are two kinds of mystery. There are the ones that nobody knows about, and the ones that nobody talks about. The mystery of Henry Page turned out to be the second kind. I discovered that a) Henry WAS named as the father of his wife Alice's last child Helen, born in 1900, and that b) one of Henry's sons, the famed Ely drummer boy Herbert Page, names both parents as next-of-kin on his attestation papers in 1908. So Henry was still alive then. However, Herbert's mother and father were living at different addresses. Mum was on Back Hill, and Henry was in a lodging house on the Waterside. I sent for the death certificate that Peter suggested. Lo and behold, it is Henry, of course. The age is seven years out, but this is because (and you may have guessed this) the person who informed the death did not know Henry at all. Henry died in the Ely Workhouse on the 21st October 1913. Tracking back to the 1911 census, I found him living in the workhouse, his occupation named as 'former road labourer'. His age was wrong and his place of birth not quite right, although I still think the clumsy search engine on 'findmypast' should really have been able to cope with that (it would have saved me several weeks of searching!). He had either given his age wrong or it had been written in the books wrong. At this distance, there is a certain glamour in having a great-great-grandfather who died in the Workhouse. Of course, it cannot have seemed like that at the time. What seems extraordinary to me is that my grandmother had been alive for six months at this stage, and she was the youngest child, so her brothers and sisters would have been of an age to know. I remember long talks with her elder brother when I was young (he is dead now) and he would have been 13 when his grandfather died, but he never mentioned it. Perhaps it was simply not talked about. It seems likely that it would have been a cause for shame - my grandmother came from two large and desperately poor Waterside families, the Pages and the Crosses (indeed, one of her Cross great-aunts was in the workhouse at the same time as Henry!) so the Workhouse must have hung like a constant shadow over their lives. I think it is probable that my grandmother, God rest her, never even knew. Simon norfolkchurches.co.uk suffolkchurches.co.uk Peter Jarman wrote: > On Free BMD I saw an entry of a death for Henry Page - Ely 3b 588 in > December 1913, though the age is given as 69 (sometimes these can be out) > > Perhaps you will have checked that already? > > Peter Jarman > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: eng-cambridgeshire-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:eng-cambridgeshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Simon > Sent: 24 November 2009 21:58 > To: eng-cambridgeshire@rootsweb.com > Subject: [ENG-CAMS] The elusive Henry PAGE > > I wonder if anyone has come across my great-great-grandfather, whom I > appear to have somewhat carelessly misplaced. > > Henry Page was born in the High Street, Great Shelford on the outskirts > of Cambridge in 1851. He married Alice Wiseman in Ely in the third > quarter of 1873, and they are recorded together on the 1881 census > living with five children in Annesdale, Ely, one of whom was Arthur, my > great-grandfather. By 1891 they had moved around the corner to Broad > Street, and had seven children at home. > > By the time of the 1901 census, Henry has gone. Alice is described as > 'Married' rather than as 'Widow', and her relationship to the head of > the household is described as 'Wife' rather than as 'Head'. This > suggests that Henry is still alive but living elsewhere. But I cannot > find Henry, and he does not appear to be recorded elsewhere on the 1901 > census. > > The last Page child, Helen, was born in 1900. There are three Page > children born after Henry's last appearance on a census in 1891 - > although, of course, these children may not be Henry's! There is an > interesting and possibly significant five year gap between the last two > children. > > Henry is also not to be found on the 1911 census, but things are > complicated further because Alice is also no longer at home. She is in > Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge dying of stomach cancer. She answers > '35 years' to the required question on the 1911 census about how long > she has been married (it was actually 38 years since the marriage date), > and states that she has had 13 children, one of whom has died. > > Alice herself died in 1912. The death was notified by her eldest son, > Henry. Intriguingly, her condition is not described as 'Widow' but as > 'Wife of Henry Page, General Labourer', suggesting that Henry was still > alive - or, at least, that the family believed him to be so. > > There are, of course, many possibilities, but I am open to suggestions. > > Two of Henry and Alice's sons died in WWI, one at Ypres, another, my > great-grandfather, on the Somme. She died before she knew about this. I > wonder if he did too? > > Simon >

Hi everyone Its been a while since I posted on here some of my surname interests so here goes. The Dewey family were originally from the Witchford area of Cambridgeshire when James Dewey decided he was to marry into the Norton family who were situated in the Waterbeach area. Settling there James and his new wife Eliza were to have many children. One of them was George Dewey born 1848 who married a young lady by the name of Annie Curtis. Again Annie was from a family already established in Waterbeach. I had the pleasure recently of visiting Waterbeach. A lovely little village, even complete with its own railway station. I was also able to get an idea of where the family lived during this time. Whilst there I tried to get some old photos of the area but was only successful in getting a copy of one that was taken in 1870. I don't know if anyone knows where else I could look? Some of the sons of George and Annie were to move to Sheffiled, which is where I live now. I assume they moved in search of work. However some stayed in the Waterbeach area and I believe the Whiterod name is one that one of the daughters married into. I'd be interested in chatting with anyone with connections to these or other branches of my family tree. Many thanks Karen Beasley