How to prove ancestry is correct?

[mummybongo]

I've become very interested in tracing my family tree over the last year and have been using a combination of Ancestry.com and Find my Past to do so.
I made a very interesting discovery recently, which if correct means that I can trace my mums family right the way back to William the Conqueror
But it very much depends on whether one particular relationship I found from the 1700s is correct or not.
The research I've done does indicate it's correct - from looking at various websites that focus on these families in question. But I don't want to tell the rest of my family our exciting news without getting it checked for accuracy first.
Would a professional genealogist help with this?

According to the census return above the marriage of William Henry and Jessie has only lasted 2 years and has no children.

The children called Smith (rather than Holroyd) are most likely Jessie’s. You can check by looking for their birth certificates or an earlier marriage certificate for Jessie.

so why would the youngest child be Holroyd smith?

@patchysmum There's a very big clue contained in the census. If you have a look at the "Completed years the present marriage has lasted" column then you will see it says "2".

So they had been married for two years but the children are between the ages of 4 and 14.

If you search for marriage records two years previously you will see that William Henry Holroyd did indeed marry Jessie Smith in Q3 of 1909 in Hunslet, Yorkshire. If you are really interested then you can get a copy of the marriage certificate from the General Register Office.

You will then notice that the youngest son is given the surname of the man as a middle name (Holroyd). This was not uncommon when the parents were unmarried.

Indeed, if you look at the birth records for him it shows that he was born in Hunslet in 1907 but there is no mother's maiden name given. When this happens (or occasionally if the maiden name given is the same as the last name of the child) this generally indicates that the parents were unmarried.

I think it likely that George was the son of William and Jessie, but William wasn't the father of the older children.

So, if you then turn to the older children, James, Clifford and Harold. Unfortunately, Smith is a very common name but there are records of a James, Clifford and Harold being born in Hunstal in the correct years and the records all show the same mother's maiden name - Chappell.

The next step is to see who the parents (Smith and Chappell) might have been. Well, it turns out that a Jessie Chappell married Arthur Smith in 1894 in Hunslet. I think this is likely them as the oldest child, James, was born in 1897.

So what happened to Arthur? Well, there is a record of an Arthur Smith dying in Hunslet in 1905 aged 34, so he would have been born in 1871. I think this is likely the correct Arthur as Jessie was then 30 and had been born in 1876. Also, their youngest son was born in 1904.

So it would appear that Jessie first married Arthur Smith and they had three sons together. He then died in 1905 and she subsequently began a relationship with William Holroyd and she got pregnant sometime around May or June 1906.

I think that Jessie (or Jessica) may be a middle name, as although she appears on the earlier censuses I cannot find any record of her birth.

I have also attached a copy of the 1921 census which shows that they had a further son together in 1912 who was called John Holroyd. The 1921 census contains quite a bit of extra information. If you have trouble reading any of it just let me know.

In 1921 they were living at 13 Brewery Yard, Hunslet. William was a boiler rivetter and the sons were out of work coal miners.

The houses seem to have since been knocked down but were behind the Blooming Rose pub on Burton Row. Here is a photo:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/252700481779889/posts/1713602815689641/

OK, I just did a bit more digging as I was interested and there is some more to the story of Jessie.

In the 1901 census (which was seven years after she married Arthur Smith). She is shown living at 7 Lockwood Place Hunslet with their eldest son James Arthur who had been born in 1897.

However, there are two other things. They also have an older daughter and Jessica describes herself as a widow. Even though they later had children and Arthur didn't die until 1905.

You must remember that people don't always tell the truth on census forms. It was more socially acceptable to be a widow than a woman who was separated from her husband.

Unfortunately, Arthur Smith is a very common name. However, there is a record of an Arthur Smith of the correct age living as a boarder in a house in another part of Leeds.

It may be that they had split up for a while and then got back together again.

It was also interesting to see that they had an older daughter, Elizabeth. She was baptised at St Mary the Virgin church, Hunslet, on 7 Nov 1894 and it gives a date of birth for her of 17 Mar 1894. Arthur was described as a miner.

Arthur and Jessie married in Q1 (that is sometime between Jan and March) of 1894. So Jessie was at least 7 months pregnant when they married.

Also, you will notice that the son, James Arthur, is on the 1911 census but not the 1921 census. I thought he had just moved out but it turns out that he was killed in WW1.

He served with 10th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment. He died of his injuries on 23 Jul 1916 at the age of 19 in France and his name is recorded on the Thiepval Memorial near the Somme.

It is likely that he was injured on 1 Jul 1916 as this is when the 10th Bn took part in an attack near Fricourt which led to the deaths of hundreds of soldiers.

This is from the Battalion War Diary for that day:

"At 7.30am the Battn took part in the grand assault the objective being as in the attached orders. On the right were the 7th Divn & on the left the 21st Divn. The Battn assaulted in 4 lines. 2 lines got through the German position to the 4th line & were cut off, the attack on our left having failed.

Casualties were very heavy. Chiefly caused by machines guns which enfiladed our left flank and were so deadly that the 3rd and 4th lines failed to get across "no-mans-land". 27 officer casulties including Lt Col [illegible name??] and Major Knott, 2nd in command, both killed, & approximately 750 Other Ranks. The Battn was then withdrawn to Vilie."

Awesome research @Another2Cats ! Poor Jessie, losing her husband and son. Though perhaps Arthur Smith was not a good man, so hopefully Mr Holroyd was nicer!

@Another2Cats wow! Thank you so much you are amazing! My son is trying to trace our family tree but is very much a novice. George Holroyd smith was my grandfather. I had heard his parents were not married but am amazed at all the information you have found!!

This is brilliant, it’s like a Mumsnet episode of Who Do You Think You Are? I realised ages again that I never care about the celebrity and can enjoy it just as much when it’s someone I have never heard of. Would happily watch it with non-famous people!

I am also agog at the tale of Jessie, Arthur and the kids....

Op without a DNA test you cant be sure of your immediate ancestry. Start there.

@patchysmum start your own thread, rude to resurrect an old thread.

Just one final thing to add. Their daughter, Elizabeth was 7 years old in the 1901 census so would have been 17 in 1911 and would usually still be living at home at that age.

However, she isn't recorded there and the usual reason why girls and young women left home was to go into domestic service. So I decided to have a quick look.

Of course, "Elizabeth Smith" is a common name, but in the 1911 census there was an Elizabeth Smith of the correct age working as a domestic servant for a family in another part of Leeds. It is very possible that this was Elizabeth, Jessie & Arthur's eldest child.

She was working as a housemaid for William and Martha Penrose-Green and their daughter in Roundhay, Leeds. She was one of three servants; the Penrose-Greens also employed a parlour maid and a cook.

William owned an iron foundry and was a horticultural and mechanical engineer. He had also been Lord Mayor of Leeds a couple of years earlier in 1909.

It must have been a fair sized house to employ three servants. So I had a quick check and it turns out that it was demolished in the 1960s, but the grounds were huge. After his house was demolished, around 20 large detached houses were built in the 1960s/70s. If you look on google maps then Whitechapel Close and Whitechapel Way in Roundhay were built in its former grounds.

William died in 1941 and when the probate was done his estate was valued at £102,303 4s 4d - and that's in 1941 money. Today that would probably be the equivalent of £5-6 million.

So, it wasn't exactly Downton Abbey, but the Penrose-Greens were clearly very wealthy.

@Another2Cats Loving your work !

They are his step children. If you look at the number of years married it says 2 and the next column says no children born to this marriage. Don't know why the youngest has his name as a middle name though.

Ignore me. PP has put in much more effort😀

Excellent and generous research @Another2Cats