Baldock/Fagg/Small Family

I have believed for quite a while that my great-great grandmother was Louisa BURROWS; I have a copy of her marriage certificate to my great-great-grandfather, Stephen CASTLE, and she was indexed as BURROWS. Her certificate is ambiguous – the ‘u’ in BURROWS could be an unclosed ‘a’. Yet I was not able to trace a birth record. I recently revisited this predicament, and believe I have solved it.

I took a pot luck and did a wildcard search online for Louisa B*RROWS, and struck gold. Various sources indicate Louisa BARROWS was born Q3 1852 in Stelling Minnis, and appears to be the daughter of George BARROWS and Mary SUTTON. This fits well, since a witness at Louisa’s wedding was one Jane SUTTON, possibly a cousin or aunt (yet to be determined). In 1861, Louisa was at the home of her SUTTON grandparents, but in 1871 was at her parents’ home, along with her grandfather, Henry BARROWS.

I can finally trace further back on my mother’s line …

One has to visit a cemetery such as that at Canterbury to appreciate its scale ….

I had gone along Sunday with the hope and expectation of finding missing CASTLE ancestors which I was unable to locate in St Dunstan’s churchyard. I should have been much wiser, having gone armed with a cemetery plan which show its segmentation into smaller zones. And as usual I had not contacted the local council to determine possible plots numbers…. !

All this meant that I was relying on my usual wanderings through gravestones and along paths, recording any names which were recognisable. However, this did result in my locating two or three CASTLE graves for people not in my tree, and a Charles HATTON, which I need to investigate.

One benefit of checking by this method is that one tends to find graves which may not otherwise have been found.

All this took around 3 hours – and still probably less than a third of the cemetery checked…. !

Note to self (again) – really, REALLY, must research plot numbers with councils before visiting more cemeteries!

Having recently failed to find CASTLE ancestors at St. Dunstan’s graveyard, Canterbury, it would appear that, like Womenswold, I need to extend my research to a second cemetery.

David Wood, Chairman of the Canterbury Branch of Kent Family History Society (KFHS), informs me that I may find them buried at Canterbury Cemetery, Whitstable Road (just up from St. Dunstan’s). This cemetery opened for business from 1877 and, despite being registered in the parish of St. Dunstan’s, they may be buried there.

This would fit, since the earliest burial of this CASTLE family I have so far is 1883 – time to get hunting again!