New Year, New Mystery

Another year, another family mystery to solve...

According to census records and family documents, my great-great grandparents, Frederick Chapman and Sarah Jane Barnes, had five children: Charles, Mary ("Ada"), Constance, Samuel and Frederick William. Every record I can find indicates that although Frederick and Sarah Jane were both born and raised in England, their first three children were born in Ireland and the last two were born in Scotland. These records are also surprisingly consistent on the birth years of the children - 1866, 1867, 1870, 1873 and 1879.

Recently, I've been in contact with a Chapman cousin in England (a descendent of one of Frederick's brothers). He shared with me a newspaper article that clearly places Frederick Chapman in his hometown of Markfield, England about 1868. Of course, this got me thinking - if Frederick had two children born in Ireland in 1866 and 1867, what was he doing in Markfield in 1868? It was time to do a little more digging into Frederick and his family...

The first thing I did was start looking for documentation of the births of Frederick's children. I already had documentation for the youngest son, my great-grandfather Frederick William, but I needed exact dates for the other four children. I didn't have much luck on Ancestry.com (my first stop for genealogy queries), so I headed over to familysearch.org to see what records they had available. The first thing I found was a Scottish birth record transcription for Samuel Chapman, born 29 Aug 1873 - which fits with what I know of the family.

Looking further into the records, I found an Irish birth record for an Elizabeth Barnes Chapman, daughter of Frederick Chapman and Sarah Jane Barnes, born 16 Jan 1870. I don't have an Elizabeth on my family tree, but Constance Chapman's middle name was Eliza, and this record fits with her estimated birth year of 1870. So now that just left Charles and Mary Chapman, but unfortunately, neither child shows up in the Irish birth records available on familysearch.org.

Initially, I hadn't looked for the marriage record of Frederick and Sarah Jane because I was working under the assumption that they had been married in Ireland, and I assumed this would be a difficult record to get my hands on (I know, I know...assumptions are bad!). At this point, though, I was ready for a break from looking for the children, so I ran Sarah Jane's name through the England marriage records. Sure enough, the first record that popped up was a marriage of Sarah Jane Barnes and Frederick Chapman, recorded in 1868 in Devon, England (Sarah Jane's home county). Just to be sure it was my ancestors, I ordered the record from England, and it arrived today. Sure enough, this is the couple I was looking for - Sarah Jane Barnes and Frederick Chapman, married 24 Dec 1868 at the registrar's office in Newton Abbot, Devon.

Now, this throws a real monkey wrench into my understanding of the family - if Frederick and Sarah Jane were married in 1868 in England, they obviously didn't have two children in Ireland in 1866 and 1867. So where the heck did these kids come from?

In the 1871 Scotland census, Charles is listed as being born in England, but in every other census, marriage record, death record, etc, that I have come across, both Charles and Mary Chapman are listed as being born in Ireland.

On her marriage record, Sarah Jane is listed as a 'spinster' and Frederick as a 'bachelor' - meaning that neither had been married previously. However, they were married in the registrar's office, with the registrar's staff as witnesses. I'm no expert on nineteenth century marriage customs, but this strikes me as odd. Was there a reason they weren't married in the church and that no family members served as witnesses?

To go along with that question, there are a few others: When, exactly, were Charles Chapman and Mary Chapman born? Where? Was Frederick Chapman even their father? And if not, who was? Were they born out of wedlock? And, if Frederick wasn't their father, did either of them know that?

Nothing like a good mystery to kick off a new year of research!

(Also, as a side note...I find it amusing that it is both less expensive and faster to have a record sent to me from England than it is to have one sent from New York City.)