Sequel - the Budkeeper's family story

In my first post of this year - as an adjunct to the reasoning behind a new year's resolution to think of other people - I told of a nine-year-old I'd discovered in the 1851 census whose occupation was given as 'Ag Budkeeper'.  You can read the story of him and his family, so far as I knew it then,  here.  As part of the ongoing mopping-up operation following the hasty, corner-cutting completion of the twin family trees I presented to my cousin and her husband for their golden wedding in March, I have now been able to piece together a bit more of their story.

In 1851, this boy was one of a family headed by his father, who was shown as 'married' but, instead of his wife, the senior female was an 18-year-old daughter.  The story began, therefore, as I looked for the matriarch.  I quickly located her in the next village, attending her eldest daughter, who a week earlier had given birth to what appeared to be her fourth child.  This babe was named on the census as 'Susana' which, with only one 'n', looked rather strange.  I later located her ten years later, and also found her birth registration ... as Honor, not Susan or Susanna.  The dates match and preclude the birth of another child, so this evidence leads me to conclude that what the enumerator - or more likely a neighbour who filled in the household form - had heard and written in 1851 as 'Susana' was actually 'She's Honor'.

Honor had been born into a household comprising her mother, Mary Ann, a one-year-old sister, Emma, her uncle James, a 14-year-old chimney sweep, and her grandmother, Ann, 62, whose absence from her marital home had prompted my investigation in the first place.  Back in this family home with the baby's grandfather, George, were two aunts, Martha, 18, and Susan, 16, another uncle, the 9-year-old John - the 'Budkeeper' of my earlier post - and two more people, Sarah, 7, and George, 5, who were described as 'granddaughter' and 'grandson'.  These two later proved to be Honor's sister and brother, whom I presumed had been moved out of the cottage to give room for the birth to take place in as much comfort and dignity as conditions would allow.

Mary Ann was married early in 1852 to James Jarman and as it appears in 1861 their family seems 'established'.  James had been in Norwich Castle Prison in 1851, but now, happily married, he was working as a chimney sweep and Mary - unusually, since most wives were not normally accorded an occupation - was described as a 'herb gatherer', so it seems likely that she may have had a reputation as a woman who knew about herbs and their properties, knowledge perhaps acquired in days when she had had to fend for herself.  George, now a 15-year-old chimney sweep, and Emma now 11, still retained their mother's maiden name, but Honor was now known as Jarman, and had been joined by four further children, soon to be followed by a fifth early in 1862.

The 1861 census shows that Sarah had stayed with her grandparents, where, now aged 18, she was described as 'daughter', notwithstanding that her 'mother' Ann was 72.  This thought led me also to question whose child John had been, for, although there was no sign of him after his famous appearance in 1851 as a 'budkeeper', his birth was registered in 1842.  Since the indication is that Ann had been born in 1788 or '89, her even being his mother is suspect.

Mary Ann died in 1880 and James in 1892.  Their apparent happiness of the early '60s wasn't to last, however, for Honor and two of her young siblings died within days of each other in November 1863, presumably of some winter illness.  Although I have yet to examine a copy of the burial register, I find it sad that, from the very reliable transcript produced by the family history society, while burials are recorded for both parents in due course, and for the two younger children, there is no burial record for Honor, under either Jarman or her birth name.  Was there still some stigma about her being born before her parents married?  We may never know.

As always, in family histories, there are so many questions left unanswered. What happened to John? Was James his father - or George's or Emma's? Why was James in prison?  When James died in 1892, he had been living with a grandson, also called John; did he marry and have a 20th-century family?  What is interesting is how the people we do know about appear to have conducted their lives, and what stories - even conversations - we can imagine from the facts we have unearthed.