Lesley Jackson (lsummer698 @t aol.com) of Derbyshire says: My grandpa, Edward George Payne, turned up in Warwickshire, age 10 or 12, and the family story is that he arrived with the Gypsies and was taken in at a local pub. In later life on documents he claimed he was an orphan and did not know where he came from.

I have found the following information: Edward George Payne was born 2 Feb. 1892 in Long Marston, mother Charlotte Payne (Paine), who was on the1881 census, and as a straw plaiter aged 17 and unmarried on the 1891 census, living with her family.

I wonder if you know of the names of local workhouses or orphanages he might have been placed in. Any information gratefully received.

To answer your final question directly, Tring was part of the Berkhamsted Union, so the local Union Workhouse would be the one in Berkhamsted and it would be well worth looking in the 1901 census. However one must not assume automatically that young Edward George Payne and/or his mother Charlotte would have gone to the workhouse or similar institution. [For more general information see Workhouses.]

In the 1970's there was a lot of hostility to gypsies - who were expected give up travelling and move onto Council-provided sites - and some of the local roads near Tring still have verges that were modified to make them unsuitable for a gypsy encampment. There were one or two "local" families who regularly stayed in the Tring Rural area (which includes Long Marston) and who were said to have been visiting the area regularly for generations. With this in mind I decided I would look at the Payne family on the 1851 and 1881 census transcripts to see if there were any clues. (I don't have immediate access to the 1891 census.)

In 1881 Charlotte was living in a cottage at Long Marston, Tring, in the following household:

George is recorded in the 1851 census transcript: as living in the following household in nearby Puttenham:

My first reaction is that Shillifer is a transcription error as I have never seen anything like it and a preliminary search shows no-one with an identical given name. However a quick look back at the 1881 census shows the following in a "Cottage" at Tring.

The designation of "Cottage" is unhelpful on its own but an examination of its neighbours in the census returns suggests it is in the Tring Rural area in, or close to, Long Marston, and definitely nowhere near the town of Tring. While the age is not an exact match it is almost certainly the same person and as the names clearly have the same phonetic property one must assume it is correct.

This check of the family from the census returns suggests a perfectly normal farm labouring family for the time and area with one exception. Unusual given names in the area are usually comparatively obscure Biblical names used by members of the local Baptist community - but a check of a list of such names proved negative - so I wonder if the name had a Romany origin. Pure speculation, I know, but possibly worth looking into in view of the family story about the gypsies. It was not unknown for "surplus" children to be unofficially adopted by childless relatives and perhaps Edward left Tring in the company of gypsy relatives,

Two immediate recommendations for further work. I believe there is a booklet on tracing your gypsy ancestors - and if so the Society of Genealogist's Online Bookshop may have a copy. The second is that once the 1901 census becomes available you might consider checking it for Edward and members of his family.

July 2011

Anne Johnson (derekjohnson900 @t btinternet.com) of Sidmouth, Devon, writes: I am researching the Payne family of Long Marston, Tring and came across a query from a Lesley Jackson of Derbyshire, in March 2002, concerning her grandpa, Edward George Payne.  I have found him living with his relatives on the 1901 census of Gubblecote.  Perhaps this is old news, I do not know.  He is living with his aunt, Mary Ann Reeves, nee Payne and her husband Francis Reeves and family.  My grandfather was Frank John Payne, referred to as John Payne on the 1901 census and, like Edward as a nephew.  It appears that Frank was born out of wedlock like Edward. I do not think that Edward was taken by the gypsies but that of his own accord went looking for adventure on the barges and a job.  Frank Payne went on to marry my grandmother, Ruth Badrick and became a father of three girls.  Sadly he died in The Battle of the Somme and so his three girls never knew him.  I was wondering about Frank's elder sister, Emma, referred to as a niece on the census of 1901.  Was a father mentioned for her on her Birth Certificate?  I see that there was also a query about Mary Ann's grandfather's name - Shillifer/Shiliphar Paine.  A second cousin has now come up with the name of Silvester Paine of Ivinghoe but I can find no record of this.  Are you able to help with the parentage of Emma or the ancestors of Shillifer/Shiliphar/Silvester.

The availability of censuses and other records online  has changed radically since 2002 and it is now quickly possible to fill in some of the "missing details" in a manner of minutes if you are familiar with what is available online, and the ways its can be used. For instance in 1841 Silifer Payne (35, not born in Hertfordshire) was living at Puttenham with Elizabeth (30), Henry (11), Charlotte (6), George (4) and John (1). By 1861 Shilvepher Payne (very hard to read, spelling very uncertain and misindexed - could be misread as Silvester) aged 52 and born Ivinghoe, Bucks, was living at Long Marston with his wife Elizabeth and son George while in 1871 Siliphar Payne (68. born Dagnall, Herts) was living at Long Marston with his wife Elizabeth (60) and Granddaughter Louiza Faulkner (9). FreeBMD records that Shilloper Payne (82) died in 1884.

Familysearch indexes a "Shettebor" Pain married an Elizabeth Patton at Puttenham on 25th December 1829. However there appears to be no record of the children of the marriage being baptised on familysearch and may suggest that the family were non-conformists (probably Baptists) and almost certainly no records have survived.

So where was "Shilipher" (or whatever his name was) born. The census results look a right real mess. In 1841 he was not born in Hertfordshire, in 1851 he was born at an unknown parish in Bedfordshire, in 1861 he was born in Ivinghoe, Bucks, in 1871 he was born in Dagnall, Herts, and in 1881 he was born in Tebworth, Beds. Seems mad - but is it? He was almost certainly illiterate (a check of his marriage register entry will probably show that he made his mark, as he couldn't write his own name) so he will not have filled in the census forms himself. He will have been asked which parish he was born in - and if he came from a nonconformist family he would not have been very concerned with which Church of England church was associated with the house where he was born. I will also initially dismiss the 1881 entry on the basis that he may have been senile by this stage or there was some other error due to old age..

Now look at this detailed extract from the Buckinghamshire map by Thomas Jefferys showing Dagnall in about 1768. Note "Three Shires Hole" where the counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire meet.  Bedfordshire is to the North and East of this point. Little Gaddesden is in Hertfordshire. but the area to the immediate South is an outlying part of the parish of Ivinghoe, Bucks, and Ivinghoe Common is directly to the West of Little Gaddesden. The South West corner of the map is back in Hertfordshire again. Dagnall (in the middle of the map) is a hamlet in the parish of Edlesborough, the church being some distance to the north of the hamlet and Dagnall is sometimes wrongly recorded in the census as being in Hertfordshire.

If "Shilipher" was born in a cottage associated with a farm near Dagnall his parents may well have worshiped in a chapel (or private house) in Bedfordshire (possibly near what is now Markyate which was a hotbed on nonconformity with later links to the Church of Latter Day Saints in America). His nearest parish church would have been at Little Gaddesden, in Hertfordshire. And while Dagnall is in the parish of Edlesborough, in Bucks, there are part of the parish of Ivinghoe very close by - and while Dagnall may have been the closest hamlet, the cottage where he was born might even have been in Ivinghoe.  What answer he would give to the census enumerator about his birthplace could well depend on exactly how the enumerator asked the question!

However the above speculation may be a red herring (although "Shilipher" may have moved to the Dagnall area as a young child) as familysearch shows there is a Shilliford Pain baptised at Chalgrave, Bedfordshire, on 6th January 1805, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Pain. Chalgrove adjoins the village of Tebsworth, Beds. I will leave it to you to explore the family further on familysearch - but it looks as if the family was pretty mobile - first in Apsley Guise, the Chalgrove, then Tottenhoe, and then Eaton Bray - so they may well have ended up in the Dagnall area in around 1820. Perhaps they were gypsies!? If they were always on the move that would explain the uncertainty over the place of birth.

As there was so much variation I suggest your ancestor is given the name Shilliford - the name he was baptised with. Clearly there is much more research for you to do. If you have not yet done so look up the relevant census returns online - Because of the spelling problems it may be easier to look for his wife and/or children. Get a copy of the register entry for the Pain/Patton marriage at Puttenman from HALS (can be ordered online) or look it up at your nearest LDS Family History Centre (you need to request the microfilm in advance). This may give a parish for the bridegroom and the witness names may give more clues. You should be able to find out more about the siblings of Shilliford Pain on familysearch - also the marriage of his parents - and perhaps more. Get a copy of Shilliford's baptism from the Bedfordshire Archives (can probably be ordered online) which might record if they were gypsies - and if not the certificates for one of the many siblings in other parishes might say something.

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I suspect that you have misunderstood the 1901 census entry (perhaps because you didn't look at the original) where the relevant information is:

During the census each household was given a form (which has not survived) but the information was copied into the census enumerator's summary book - which is what has survived.  Look at the entries for Emma and John Payne, and compare them with the entry for Edward G Payne. While the deleted writing is difficult to read it will be a copy of what was on the household form - which is how the family described the relation to the head of the household. at the time of the census. Later someone doing the census statistics decided that the original text was not one of the "standard" replies and "corrected" the entry by guessing "Niece" and "Nephew".  The original for John clearly starts with the word "Son" and the original for Emma seems to start with a "D" - possibly for "Daughter".

However there is no need to spend much time working out the deleted words as the relationship between Mary Ann Reeves and the children Emma and John is very clear in the 1891 census return, which you should look at if you have not already done so. The important thing to realise is that when a woman had children at the time of marriage the way they are described in later censuses can often be misleading. Technically they are step-children but this is sometimes recorded "son in law" or "daughter in law" and occasionally in some other terms - such as "son of wife." On other occasions they are recorded with the surname of the step father. I am sure that when you purchase Emma's birth certificate it will confirm the relationship in the 1891 census.

It is worth pointing out that the entry for Edward G Payne is technically incorrectly completed in that members of the immediate family were meant to be listed first, with other relatives being listed at the end of the list.