Hi Valerie Thank you very much for sending through the extracts from the 1881 and 1891 census and the picture and newspaper clipping of Emma Marley ne Lovelock's 50th wedding anniversary. What we have so far seems to be: Your great-aunt Emma was born in 1887 to a Harriet Lovelock. Harriet was then living at Bethersden, Kent and was a housekeeper, according to Emma's birth certificate. No father is listed on the birth certificate. At about the time Emma was born, her mother Harriet was housekeeper to Frank Boulding who is the presumed father. On Emma's marriage certificate in 1908, her father is shown as "Frank Lovelock, deceased". Frank's first wife, Elizabeth Newing, died about 1882/83 and Frank remarried a Charlotte by 1891, because she appears as his wife in the 1891 census. It is presumed Frank and Charlotte 'adopted' Emma because she appears as their daughter, aged 4, in the 1891 census. (However, she reverts to her name of 'Emma Lovelock' on her wedding certificate.) Frank Boulding had one son, Frank, aged 9 (in 1891 census; born abt 1882) and one daughter, Rose Emma, aged 1 (in 1881 census; born abt 1881) from his first marriage and had another son, Arthur, aged 3 (in 1891 census; bn abt 1888) and a daughter, Mary, aged 1 (in 1891 census; bn abt 1890) from his second marriage. It may therefore be presumed that he remarried about 1887. Frank Boulding and his family moved from Coombe Cottage, Brabourne, Kent in 1881 to the town of Aldington in 1891, a distance of about 4 miles. According to the 1891 census, his son Frank was born in Braborne abt 1882, Emma and his son Arthur born in Waltham (abt 1887-1888) and daughter Mary in Aldington (abt 1890), suggesting that the Boulding family also lived for a time at Waltham, which is abt 5 miles north of Braborne. Such family movements are probably not unusual for an agricultural labourer at that time. Harriet does not appear in either the 1881 census or the 1891 census as living with Frank Boulding and his family so it may be presumed that she was housekeeper between those years, most probably between 1882/83 and 1887. We do not know her age or where she was born, which causes something of a problem in trying to locate her Lovelock connections. If one assumes she was living in Kent at the time of the 1881 census - since she was living at Bethersden in 1887 - there is only one Harriet Lovelock that appears in the 1881 census of about the right age and living in Kent in 1881. However, this Harriet Lovelock doesn't appear to be correct as she was living in Greenwich, Kent. So probably the assumption that she was living in Kent in 1881 is not correct. Which means she could have been living almost anywhere! I believe the only way we can trace Emma's family further is to try and discover her approximate age and birthplace. We also have a few presumptions which, in attempting to prove them one way or another, may shed some further light on Emma's mother. We don't know the exact period when Harriet was Frank Boulding's housekeeper. She may have even been with him before 1881 but not present at the Boulding home on census night. She may have still been there in 1891 but again away on census night. I don't think Valerie you have told us how in fact you came to discover that Harriet was Frank Boulding's housekeeper. However, an agricultural labourer would not normally have the money to employ a housekeeper. Usually they had to remarry as quickly as they could, often within months of the decease of their wife. As far as I know, only the wealthy could afford housekeepers. We haven't found when Harriet died. This would be good to find as it would at least give us her age. We don't know when Frank married his second wife or when his first wife died. It is curious that Emma's birthplace in the 1891 census is shown as Waltham but on her birth certificate as Bethersden, given that they are some 15 miles apart. Hardly commuting distance for a housekeeper in the 1880s! The information shown on Emma's birth certificate may of course be deliberately inaccurate to hide the true detail of Emma's illegitimate birth - for discretion's sake. Well Valerie, I hope that summarises what we have so that others on the Lovelock list (to which I will also post this reply) might be able to add something to the discussion. Perhaps you still have some other scraps of information that you have not yet documented. Perhaps we might yet find some of those other missing pieces. Best wishes for now. Robert Sterry