A Rose by any other name won't do

As I've mentioned before, one of the toughest brick walls in my family history research is the fate of Rose Whybrew.

Rose, born in Kent, England, in 1877, married George Henry Anthony in Colchester in 1897. Their first child, Harriet, lived only a few months. Rose gave birth to a son, George William, in 1907, not long before the family migrated to the United States via Canada. They settled in Chicago, where Rose's sister Alice was living.

I've found the family in Chicago in the 1910 US census. Little George died and was buried in Chicago in 1913. In 1918, the older George received call-up papers from the US military, but as far as I can tell, he didn't respond. Rose's name appears as his wife on the papers, but her address, still in Chicago, is different to his, so it seems they had separated.

And then they disappear. I found a man  named George Anthony in the 1920, 1930 and 1940 US census, an inmate of a Chicago asylum, who fitted some of George's details. But Rose completely vanishes. I can't find any evidence that she died in Chicago. Did she remarry? Did she move interstate, or return to England? I've spent hours trying to find her, but without success. I've found lots of women named Rose Anthony, but none that I can identify as her.

I was having yet another look recently, hoping I might find her, when I came across a couple named George and Rosina Anthony in the 1939 England and Wales Register. Other women in my family named Rosina were sometimes called Rose, and vice versa, so the slightly different name didn't put me off. They lived in Hornsey, which is where Rose's sister Ada Metson lived in 1939.

According to the transcript, the husband was born in 1874, the wife in 1878, which matched the couple I was looking for almost exactly. Imagine how excited I was. Maybe George didn't finish up in an asylum after all.

Once I looked at the register image itself, I saw that the wife, Rosina, was born on 13 November 1878. That was Rose Whybrew's birth date, except for the year. Maybe the person recording the date had got the year of her birth wrong by one year. It wouldn't be the first time I'd come across an error like that in the register. I thought my brick wall was finally going to topple.

But then I noticed the couple had a daughter, Elsie Maud Anthony, who was born in 1907. That didn't fit, unless little George had a twin who was left behind when they migrated. I thought I'd better do a bit more research. And soon I found the whole family living in London in the 1911 England census. A bit more digging showed that Elsie Maud's mother's maiden name was Young. Drat!

So I still don't know what happened to Rose Whybrew. But I'm intrigued by the co-incidences between her and Rosina Young. It shows how carefully you have to check before assuming that you've found the person you're looking for in the records.

Image: F Muhammad from Pixabay

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To read more about Rose and her family, see my book Susan: convict's daughter, soldier's wife, nobody's fool. It's available on Amazon and other online books stores. To read a preview of the first chapters, click on the cover image.