More
questions (no answers):
Catherine Devere:
1870
GRO BMD microfiche shows a Catherine Mahoney born 3 quarter at St Olave vol. 1d page 280 NB 'Mahoney' not 'Devere' or
'Devers'.
Birth Certificate [Soo32]: Number 218; 11 September 1870
Workhouse Rotherhithe
Catherine Mahoney/girl/ [no father's name given]/Mother Catherine MAHONEY/ [no occupation of father given]/ X the mark of Catherine MAHONEY mother Workhouse Rotherhithe/registered 24 September 1870
1871
census 7 April 1871 RG10/627/9
Registration district: St Olave Southwark shows Catherine
Mahoney/7 months/Bermondsey, Surrey, England/Granddaughter/St Mary
Magdalen, Bermondsey London, living with Catherine & John
Mahoney (Head) AND Mary Mahoney/20 /Ireland/Daughter.
Daughter Ellen aged 18 was also there but not a daughter Catherine. Did
the baby's mother Catherine die or was Mary her mother? If this is the case the
Rotherhithe Workhouse birth certificate is for a different Catherine Mahoney but no other birth has been found.
Searches were made of 1881 census but no trace of grandmother Catherine
under DEVERS, DEVERE or De Vere was found. The 1891 census was a week
after her marriage on 29 March 1891.
But
in 1881
RG11/0705/25 a
Kate Mahoney age 10 was living with John
(46) and Mary (47) Connor as a 'boarder' at 18 Queens Street, Bermondsey (around the corner from William Edmund Bartlett at 4 Queens Place RG11/0556/70).
Could this Mary (1st/2nd marriage to Connor?) be Catherine (Mahoney)
Devers' mother or grandmother? She would have been 37 when Catherine was born instead of 20/21. What woman would exaggerate her
age!!? Transcription error? Marriage cert. may help.
Might Kate (Catherine) and William Edmund Bartlett have met as children? A romantic thought!
Continue search of FreeBMD
for marriage of John Connor and Mary (Mahoney?) 1870 on. Also for birth and death of Kate Mahoney.
Get a marriage certificate for John Connor to see if he did marry Mary Mahoney.
1885
September quarter John Conroy
married Mary
Mahoney vol. 1d page 482 - a long shot but it might be
worthwhile to buy a certificate.
Also in 1881
RG11/0559/73:
Kate DEVAR
[sic]
Birthplace Bermondsey; age 10, Scholar, Step-Daur
[born abt.
1870]
Head of Household William James TANNER aged 24, 11 Minto
Street.
[born abt 1846]
No spouse named Mary was living in the household, yet Tanner is recorded as "married".
The other occupants were John 7
[born abt. 1872]
and Amelia 10 months [born abt. 1879]
Tanner; relation to Head, "other".
Were they siblings
or
nephew/niece?
Who were their parents?
See S00034 (St Olave Southwark London Surrey vol. 1d page 394) marriage certificate for details of the 6 May 1873 marriage of William & Mary. Was he really a widower by 1881?
FreeBMD
for John shows TANNER, John, St. Saviour
vol.1d page 27 born September quarter 1873
but Amelia is not yet in db. Birth cert. of Amelia would identify her mother.
In September quarter
1874
in St Saviour Vol. 1d p.251, a Mary MAHONEY was married to eiher
Timothy Joseph McHUGH or William Munday.
In September quarter 1879
in Camberwell, Surrey vol. 1d
page 807 a Mary Mahoney was married but the groom is not yet on line
(FreeBMD). A certificate would tell who he was.
Cousin Caroline
Venamore has found (3 May
2004) an entry for a Catherine Mahoney marrying a William H Harrison in
the September quarter1870
register of marriages. (Same time as Jack was asking after them.)
William Henry Harrison of full
age, bachelor, was a basket maker from
Bermondsey. His father was a candle maker
named Thomas Harrison.
Caroline has tried to find the sister Nelly under the names Ellen and
Eleanor but nothing so far seems to fit conclusively. Similarly with
William, the brother he mentions.
[venamore@lycos.co.uk]
This and the 1881 census may be
a complete
coincidence but the names, dates, places and
occupation fit.
The 1881
census shows Catherine and William Harrison (Basket maker) living in
Bermondsey. Catherine 34 is shown as having
been born in Tralee, Ireland. Her suspected sister Mary Mahoney was
born merely in 'Ireland'.
Both Catherine and William and their eldest child are recorded as being
deaf and dumb. There appear to have been a number of institutions for
the deaf and
dumb in Southwark which may explain how they met. The marriage cert
supports this info with a witness being the master of a Deaf and Dumb
Institution.
1881
census: 82 Blue Anchor Lane,
Bermondsey
William H. Harrison Head Mar 34
M Basket
Maker Bristol, Gloucester, England
Catherine Harrison Wife Mar 34 F Tralee,
Ireland
[abt 1847]
Thomas H. Harrison
Son
7 M Bermondsey, Surrey
William C. Harrison
Son 3
M
Bermondsey, Surrey
John G. Harrison Son 1 M Bermondsey, Surrey
_______________________________
Source Information:
See the
images of census pages linked to the names.
____________________________________________________________________________
John H DEVERS:
In his letter, given in evidence at the court martial, his father
Edward asked Jack to send him the 'resete' (recipe) for a patching
solution that 'barny' (Barney?) used in 'beacup'.
Now, is this a flight of fancy or what? Jack and his father travelled
from Clare to London via Bacup, Lancashire where they both worked for
or with a bootmaker called Barney. Possible?
There were no 'Devers' in Bacup in the 1861 census when John would have
been 14 and probably apprenticed so this idea cannot be proven this
way.
1870 census
RG9/3129/8 this is probably them:
86 Brunswick Street Civil parish: Preston Ecclesiatical parish: St
James Preston Lancashire
Edward Devers/widower/ 40/shoemaker/Ireland
John Devers/son/un/16/shoemaker/Ireland
Elizabeth Devers/dau/12/scholar/Staffordshire Bilston
The family must therefore have left Ireland between 1847 and 1849.
1870
John H Devers wrote to 'Dear wife' and joined US Cavalry in New York.
1871 drummed out of US Cavalry in Fort Union, New Mexico.
Up to this point we are fairly sure of the facts but now assumptions start to be made!
1873
An Edward DEVERS applied for first naturalisation papers in McHenry County Illinois. Was this John's father and did he complete the process?
1880census Nederland, Boulder Colorado: John H Devers age 34 b. 1846 Ireland.
1880
census US: An Edward Devers b. Ireland shows up in California. Maybe he gave up bootmaking for the gold fields. The age is about right. A marriage certificate would not be very conclusive at this stage but if he was naturalised in California the certificate might link him to Illinois.
Census place La Porte, Plumas, California Family History Library Film
1254070 NA Film Number T9-0070 Page Number 418A
Edward DEVER/self/M/Male/White/63/born IRE/Miner/father born IRE/mother born IRE
Bridget DEVER/wife/m/female/white/50/born Ireland/Keeping house/father born IRE/mother born IRE
1883
John H Devers, a shoemaker, in the city
directory of Leadville
Colorado. Could this be our Jack?
1885
special census Colorado: no DEVERS.
1887
Directory of Louisville Kentucky lists John H Devers, shoemaker, but the
1880
census only shows 2 Devers in Kentucky, both born in Kentucky. The John H Devers who died in 1935 aged 88 was a farmer born in Kentucky. Was the other one, the shoemaker, our boy?
Look for his records in Kentucky.
