6.3 The missing records for the children of 3x great grandparents John Hill & Mary Upfield

As far as I have found out, John Hill and Mary Upfield had ten children in total between 1830 and 1854: four girls and six boys. They had two sons called George, the first born in 1850 who died aged two years. Their next and last child was also George, born in 1854, two years after the first George’s death. However, their children have mostly been frustratingly difficult to trace after the 1861/1871 census, not helped by their common surname and little to distinguish them from others in terms of occupation.

Ann Hill was their first child, b.1830. She appears aged 11 on the 1841 census, then seems to disappear from the record. FamilySearch has marriage banns in October 1851 in Harting, Sussex, of Ann Hill, spinster and James Glen, bachelor of Idsworth. The Genealogist has an Ann Hill, aged 22, in the 1851 census, Servant at Idsworth Farm, Idsworth, b. Harting, with James Glen, 20, also a servant. Possibly 'our' Ann? However, there appears to be another Hill family from Harting, so probably not the correct Anne. But there is no other sighting of Ann Hill in the records that I have found.

James Hill was their first son, b.1832. He is at home with his parents in Elsted in the censuses up to 1861, by then an Ag.Lab, aged 27. I initially ‘married him off’ to Louisa Bleach in 1865, but a further look at the marriage record showed that this James’ father was William, not John. There is a death record for 1862, but this person was too old. Again, no reliable sighting of James after 1861.

William Hill was born in 1835 and is still at home in 1861, aged 25, an Ag.Lab. In the 1871 census, he seems to be living with his widowed mother in Harting, but I’ve not otherwise found any further record of him, unless he is the William Hill who married Caroline White in Harting in 1885. But where was he then in 1881?

Lucy Hill was born in 1839, the first of her siblings to be born after civil registration; her birth entry therefore gives us her mother’s maiden name, Mary Upfield. Lucy is at home in the 1841-1851 censuses. She marries Thomas Saunders in Treyford-cum-Didling on 19 July 1862, three years after they both stand as witnesses to brother John Hill’s first marriage there to Fanny Taylor. By 1881, they have moved to Linch, Sussex, where Thomas is working as a Gamekeeper. They have three children: Rhoda, Lucy and George. In the 1891 census, they are still at Linch, and while Thomas is a Gamekeeper, their son George, 20, is a carpenter. They are still at Linch in 1901; Thomas dies in June that year, and Lucy dies on 28 April 1909, leaving her effects amounting to £190 17s 8d to son George Saunders, Carpenter.

Thomas Hill stayed at home like his siblings until the time of the 1861 census. His birth name appears to have been Alfred (registered Midhurst, in the June quarter of 1842, mother’s maiden name Upfield), but baptised that September as Thomas. In the 1871 census, he is living at No.1, Stock Heath Field, Bedhampton, in Hampshire, working as an Ag. Lab, born Elsted. His wife is Jane, born 1844, from Rogate, Sussex. They have two children: Mary J (4) and Dorcas (2). Jane’s name is given as Smith on their birth index entries, but I have so far not found a marriage record for Thomas and Jane, nor found the family in the censuses after 1871.

Harriet Hill was born in 1846, but I have not found her in the 1861 census (other than a Harriet, born Treyford, working as a servant in Brighton, aged 16). There is a marriage for a Harriet Hill, father John Hill, in 1869, to George Bartholomew, in Harting. A daughter – Annie Eliza - is born to (apparently) the same couple in Brighton, Sussex, in January 1869, before the marriage. The child dies in 1870, also in Brighton.

A Harriet Bartholomew, aged 24, born Sussex, is shown as unmarried, working as a servant in Brighton in 1871. Did her husband desert her after the death of their child (or did she leave him)? Is he the same George Bartholomew, with wife Harriet b. Calne, Wilts, in the 1881 and 1891 censuses, working as a Fishmonger at 218 Euston Road, St Pancras?

Fanny Hill was born two years after Harriet, in 1848. She is at home, aged 16, working as a chambermaid in Elsted in 1861 and is still a chambermaid, this time in a hotel in High Street, Petersfield, Hampshire, in 1871. After that, she also disappears from the record.

George Hill, born in 1854, was the last known child of John Hill and Mary Upfield. His older brother George was born in 1850 and died in 1852. The last sighting of him is at home with parents and siblings in Elsted in the 1861 census.

I suppose it is possible that several of the siblings emigrated en masse in 1861-1871; it seems strange that they all disappear from the records without reliable trace of deaths/burials or marriages.

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

6.2 Tracing births, baptisms, deaths and burials of John Hill and Mary Upfield

From the censuses, it seems likely that John Hill was born in Elsted around 1804-6, son of another John Hill and his wife Mary. FamilySearch has a copy of the Elsted parish register showing the baptism of John Hill, son of John and Mary Hill, on 2^nd September 1804 (the last baptism of that year):

I have no other records related to John Hill’s early life, before his (probable) marriage to Mary Upfield in 1829 in Bepton, when he was around 25 years old.

Mary Upfield has proved to be more difficult to trace, and I am still uncertain as to her birth/baptism and parentage. Her surname can be written in various ways (Upfield, Uppfield, Upfold, Upfeld) and her first name is hardly uncommon. In the 1851 census she says she was born in ‘Honiker’ (Halnaker), and her age in the censuses indicate a birth around 1811-1814. In later censuses she gives her birthplace as Elsted.

FindMyPast has a transcription of a possible baptism in Rogate, and FamilySearch has images of the parish registers, including a baptism record for a Mary Upfield in Rogate, Sussex (18 miles from Halnaker), on 24 October 1813, illegitimate daughter of Ann Uppfield and a John Briggs:

Halnaker doesn’t itself have a church, but 18 miles seems a long way to go from Elsted or Halnaker, so this may not be the correct Mary Upfield. I haven’t found any information online relating to any bastardy bonds or affiliation orders online relating to John Briggs, but from this entry it was clear he was recognised as the father.

The only other baptism around the right date and area is for Mary Uppfold in Arundel on 3 December 1810, daughter of William and Sarah (FindMyPast), but again, this seems a long way from Halnaker or Elsted.

Her name on the censuses is shown as Mary (1841, 1871) and Mary Ann (1851, 1861); but which is she?

My 3xgreat grandmother Mary Upfield may have to remain a bit of a mystery for a while longer; not only am I uncertain about her birth, but I have failed so far to find an obvious death record for her. At the time of the 1871 census, she is living with her third eldest son William Hill at East Harting Street, in Harting, Sussex (I think!). She is shown as head of household, a widow aged 57 (b1814, Elsted), working as a seamstress. Son William is a 36 year-old agricultural labourer, unmarried. Next door is a family with the surname Glue, with another family member with the name Kemp – which appeared as Hill family neighbours in earlier censuses.

Her husband John Hill died two years before this census, on 8^th September 1869 (the year is given as 1868 on the copy of the certificate from the GRO, but the original entry shows 1869):

The death certificate shows that John Hill died in Harting, aged 66, from ‘disease of the heart, certified’. The informant was Eunice Glue, present at the death. It took me some time to accept that this was ‘my’ John Hill, given the place of death and the name of the informant. Some of the Glue family are living next door to his widow, in Harting, in 1871 (but not Eunice). It turns out that Eunice Glue is the daughter of John Hill’s cousin, Charlotte Hall (née Hill).

John Hill was buried in Harting on 12^th September 1869, aged 66 years. More research is needed to find out when his widow, Mary Hill née Upfield was born and died. 

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