11 May 2021

9.1 4xgreat grandparents Daniel Collins & Mary Ann Hall: A large family and two more brick walls

3xgreat grandmother Mary Ann Collins married James Stocking in 1849, naming her father as Daniel Collins, a Plasterer, on her marriage certificate. The only other early records we have for her and her parents are the 1841 census and Mary Ann Collins’ baptism in 1828, on the same day as her brother Thomas Henry, b1826. The census shows the family living at Little Britain, a very poor area of Southwark. With the young Mary Ann, aged 12, are her parents and her seven siblings, ranging in age from six months to twenty years.

This suggests that her parents married around 1819-1821. Ancestry has the record of their marriage at St Mary Newington on 2nd April 1820 (extract below):










The bride’s full name is Mary Ann Hall. Both are single and ‘of this parish’. They married after banns and the witnesses are William Hall and Jane Hall, who may be relatives of the bride.

Daniel Collins’ occupation of Plasterer is relatively consistent throughout the records, and the couple are both shown in the censuses as born in St George, Southwark. Their address is Little Britain, (in the Kent Street area of Southwark), for at least 20 years. Their birth years, however, are harder to pinpoint:

1841 census: Daniel Collins, aged 45 (b1796), Plasterer, Mary Collins, aged 45 (b1796)
1851 census: Daniel Collins
, aged 62 (b1789), Journeyman Plasterer. Mary Collins, aged 59 (b1792)
1861 census: Daniel Collins, aged 73 (b1788), Plasterer Mary Collins, aged 61, Chair Caner (b1800)

We know that the 1841 census asked that the ages of those 15 or over were ‘rounded down’ to the nearest five years, so Daniel and Mary could conceivably have been around 50-52 then, which would bring Daniel’s birth year fairly certainly to 1788-1790. His wife’s age varies rather more wildly though, from 1790-1800.

In all the censuses, their children are either living with them or, once married, in nearby houses around Little Britain and neighbouring Castle Street, Southwark. Their marriage record of 1820, and the 1861 census, are the first and last of Daniel Collins and Mary Ann Hall that I have been able to find. Two brick walls, and more research to do to find their baptisms, deaths and burials. 

For the sources mentioned in bold, see blogpost: MyRoots: Lesly's family history: Sources and resources: A quick view


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This blog will (eventually) show the ancestry of each of my four grandparents. I've started with my paternal grandfather, James Aaron St...