Way Back Wednesday returns! with a new theme. Once a week (on Wednesday!) we will be posting a brief item which relates to both Surname Studies and the letter of the week, going through the alphabet.  Posts can be about surnames in your study, snippets/trivia which relate to Surname Studies generally; they can (preferably) have a picture attached, and need only be a few sentences long (longer if you want!).  And if you want to claim a particular letter, do let me know. Please send your posts and/or letter-claims to me at sos[at]surname-society.org.

Our new theme will start on the first Wednesday of July 2016.  I will fill in the rest of June, so you can see the sort of thing we are looking for.

This week: A is for Selina ALLEN

Selina Allen was born in Bristol in 1849 and married there in 1866 to William Murch, also from Bristol.  She appears regularly in every census, and each time William and Selina are adding to their family.  William began as a cordwainer, and works regularly as a boot and shoe maker, until in the 1911 census he is making-to-measure shoes in a retail shop.

In the 1891 census, there are eleven children still at home: 6 boys and 5 girls, with the boys following in their father's footsteps and becoming boot and shoe makers themselves.  The girls, as they grow older, work on dressmaking and delicate clothing.

On the 1911 census, Selina states that she has had 13 children, 8 of whom still survive.  She died in 1918.

© Ros Haywood

School of Surnames

[Letter 'A' is courtesy of openclipart.org]