Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Can anyone help me find the right William Cummings as there seem to me a few all within 5 years of each other.

My William Cummings born in Liverpool Circa 1855 to 60, married Elizabeth ( maybe nee Fitzgerald / Irish ), then moved to Plymouth.

Maybe tied up in Coal ?

10 Children

Lilian May, Frederick Stanley, Florence Mabel, Beatrice Maud, Albert, Fany Rosina, Alfred Charles + Henry.

There are William's in Dale St, Toxteth, Tarlton St, etc, but has I do not know the area orany other history, I am geting bogged down

I also understand that there is a Cummings St ????

Came anybody help.

Is this your Liiverpool family ???

Regards

Homepridefred

Hi and welcome Homepridefred
for the crew to look at

at Plymouth
1881 RG11; Piece: 2190; Folio: 140; Page: 7
Name Age
William Cummings 28 Seaman b Liverpool
Elizabeth Cummings 24
Willm.J. Cummings 1


1891 Plymouth
RG12; Piece: 1729; Folio 29; Page 51

William Cummings 33 b Liverpool Coal Porter
Elizabeth Cummings 32
William Cummings 11
Alfred Cummings 9
Fanny Cummings 7
Berty Cummings 5
Beatrice Cummings 2
Henry Cummings 6 Months

have you the marriage cert at all, or sent for any birth certs for children to confirm mum's maiden name
marriage certificate would give his dad's name too.

where did you get possible maiden name from?

there is a likely marriage at Plymouth Mar q 1879
William Cummings to Elizabeth Hannah Giles.

If he had been seman, he could have landed at Plymouth, settled there and married. All the children were born in Plymouth.

possible for Elizabeth in 1871 at Plymouth

RG10; Piece: 2112; Folio: 106; Page: 38
David Giles 37
Elizabeth Giles 37
David Giles 12
Elizabeth H Giles 14
Mary H Giles 10
William Giles 5
Rose Giles 3
Jessie Giles 12 Weeks

Simone x

Hi and welcome to the forum.

As advised by Simone you need the birth certificate of one of the children to ensure you have the correct name for Elizabeth, without it you could follow a totally incorrect line. The marriage certificate should then be easier to find which will give information helpful to searching for William in earlier censuses - such as what age he gave at the time of the marriage, his father's name and occupation and possible witnesses who may have been related.

Trying to find the most unusual name to pinpoint a child's birth I think this might be one

Beatrice Maud Cummings Q4 1888 Plymouth, Devon 5b 243

With this information you can order the birth certificate online from www.gro.gov.uk - be sure to state that the parents names are William and Elizabeth.

The family are here in 1901. Despite being Walter on the census page, its definitely them because all the childer's names match and I am too idle this evening to repeat them all!
CUMMINGS, Walter, Head - Married - 44 - 1857 - Coal Porter - Liverpool.
CUMMINGS, Elizabeth - Wife - 42 - 1859 - Plymouth, Devonshire.
Address: 29 Looe Street, Plymouth.
RG13 Piece: 2101 Folio:23 Page:37
And a decade later most of the children are still single!

My crystal ball tells me William/Walter and Elizabeth were married around 1878 and probably in Devon.
Possibly as Simone found? Marriages Mar 1879> CUMMINGS, William and Giles, Elizabeth Hannah - Plymouth - 5b - 380.

We need a child's birth cert to confirm the marriage maiden name, then the marriage cert to get his father's name.
Onwards and backwards....!

Dickiesam

I'm sorry, I haven't anything to add to the Cummings saga but I had to write and say how much dickiesam made me laugh with what should be the motto for all genealogists - Onwards and Backwards! Thank you dickiesam.
PS I do have Cummings' in my family - great great granparents from Dublin, if that's any help.
Barbara

Thanks Guys for your replies.

Simone, you will see my confusion when you look at the ages of William and Elizabeth between the 1881 Census and the 1891 Census, William in the 1881 Census would have been born 1853, BUT in the 1891 Census born 1858, BUT William John has the right gap of 10 years between Census's and ties up wth his date of birth.

So Census's 1901 and 1891 are correct, but 1881 seems strange and that is what is confusing me.

The marriage to Elizabeth Giles makes sense.

However, I still need to identify my William Cummings in Liverpool.

Someone must have a relation that moved to Plymouth and stayed ??

Many thanks for all your replies

Homepridefred

Hi

Yes I see but I don't think you should worry about the age difference many of us on here have seen real discrepancies in families that have been proved to be ours.

For example.. I had someone on a census who was 10 years younger on the next census but documentary evidence proved them to be right, the same person

Often people didn't know their exact age or whoever provided the info may have made a guess at an age.

Maybe the 1881 census isn't your's but if you know the names of the 10 children, then you need to go logically backwards, get the birth of one of the children to confirm mum's name and then you can get the marriage to get the names and occupations of their fathers You can then hopefully trace William in Liverpool with his birth family

Good Luck

Simone x

HI GUYS

HELP !!!!!!!!

Known facts to date.

My Gt Grandfather, William Cummings, a Fisherman / Seaman from Liverpool, ( No address given on the Marriage Cert ) Aged 26 ? was married to Elizabeth Hannah Giles in Plymouth in 1879, where they lived and had 10 children.
Witness Charles Richards.

This would make William's DOB 1853. The nearest I can find is a William Cummings in 1855 with a father called William who died before he was born.

William Cummings's father was Thomas Cummings, a Ship Stower.
( Do not know where he was born ).

The only Thomas Cummings I can find in one aged 57 on the 1861 Census.

I am therefore at a deadend.

Any suggestions. Does anyone know of this family.

Struggling to find either William or Thomas on any Liverpool Census

Can you help ?

Regards

Homepridefred

Hi

Found this one possible

1851 census
HO107; Piece: 2181; Folio: 69; Page: 25
Thomas Cumming b Ireland c 1830 Mariner
Relation: Lodger


tricky traking him later

loads of variations on this name isn't there can't pinpoint Williams birth reg for definite

Simone x

I wonder if Thomas was a ship's stoker - I've never jeard of a ship stower.

If he was a stoker he could be at sea when census is taken.

Hilary
Ed Officer

With no specific date of birth for William and no birth place for Thomas, what do I do next ?

Any ideas ??

Homepridefred

From his marriage cert and the four following censuses we have years of birth in order of 1853, 1853, 1858, 1857 and 1855. In my experience that's about an average spread. Remember that the year of birth is calculated in the census transcription based on the age given to the enumerator. It was not calculated at the time of the census. And as previously pointed out, lots of people had no idea of precisely how old they actually were. Some would have birth or baptism certs, but they would be relatively few and far between.

In 1861 there are only 3 candidates from a search using born Lancashire 1855 +/- 5 years, all counties.

In all 3 the mother is a widow:
1) RG09 / 2734 / 110 / 24 - William Cummin - bn 1857 in West Derby, Lancashire.

2) RG09 / 2733 / 109 / 9 - William Cummins - bn abt 1852 in Liverpool.

3) RG09 / 4101 / 58 / 7 - William Cumming - bn abt 1856 in Ormskirk, Lancashire.
I wouldn't be unduly concerned about the spelling variations. Happened all the time with some name.

#s 1 and 2 live in West Derby while #3 lives in Swansea. In the latter case the mother was born in Appledore, Devonshire. That's the same county he married in and lived in for 30 years. Could be a coincidence. The mother, Elizabeth Cumming, has another son besides William..
From FreeBMD:
Births Dec 1857> Cumming, Fergus - W Derby - 8b - 376.
Births Jun 1855> Cumming, William - Ormskirk - 8b - 556.

If this was my personal search I'd get the cert for one of the above two births. It could be that W's father Thomas died between March 1857 and April 1861.

Dickiesam

EDIT: There's a possibility that Elizabeth Cumming, W's mother, remarried..
Marriages Jun 1870> All Swansea - 11a - 792.
Cleaver, Amy; Cumming, Elizabeth; Davies, William John; Leeworthy, Francis.

The plot still thickens.

Still struggling with a birth certificate, but manahed to get a death certificate showing his middle name as Mundle, died 1927, 71 yrs making his DOB circa 1856.

Requested birth cert again with this new info. Hopefuly I will be successful.

Does anyone know of him ? He was in the navy, then came to Plymouth as a fisherman once retired from the navy.

Married Elizabeth Giles, had 10 children and died in Plymouth.

Many thanks

Did you purchase one of the children's birth certificates?

If yes did you then get the marriage certificate of the parents?

If yes what was the name of William's father on the marriage certifictae and his occupation.

Without this information it is going to continue to be difficult to find the correct William's birth unless the GRO can find a birth of a William Mundle Cummings.

Education Officer wrote:...it is going to continue to be difficult to find the correct William's birth unless the GRO can find a birth of a William Mundle Cummings.

and that isn't going to happen since there are no entries of any surname with a christian name Mundle.

Education Officer wrote:Did you purchase one of the children's birth certificates?

The name William isn't very uncommon, however, thanks to Simone's first post dated Nov 03, 2010 giving the names of the children, my own first post of the same date, hopefully identified one of the children with a less common name that could have given you the information you need to take the next step - so did you get the birth certificate of Beatrice? and what was the information given on it?

First of all I got Henry Cummings birth certificate.

This confirmed the parents as William Cummings a fisherman, and Elizabeth Giles, living in Looe Street Plymouth in 1890.

I then got William and Elizabeth's marriage certificate.

This confirmed that William 26 ? , a Seaman from Liverpool, and Elizabeth 22 from 3 Hicks Lane were married in Plymouth in 1879.

Williams father was Thomas Cummings, a Ships Stower from Ireland.

With this info I went to the GRO with a request for Williams Birth Cert.

First I tried 1855, my money was returned.

Next I tried 1853, my money was returned.

I then got a copy of William Cummings's Death Cert to see if it would give me a difinitive birth date.

This is where the middle name Mundle comes from.

William, 71 yrs died in Plymouth in 1927, occupation Coal Dealer and Naval Pensioner, but NO Dob.

I have now requested a Birth Cert from GRO using 1856, Cummings ? Cumming ?, Born Liverpool ? Lancs ?, showing the middle name of Mundle.

Hopefully this will work.

Failing that I will have to try and get his naval records.

Nothing's ever easy

Homepridefred

Hi

Ur right, Mundle did not help

Gone back to GRO requesting 2 Birth certs for 1858

One for W Cummins, and the other for W Cumming

If this doen't work I do not know what to do next

Homepridefred

Sorry I have been away for a couple of weekends and not a lot of time to catch up here so I may be wrong, but have you answered my query at the bottom of the previous page?

You seem to be fixed on finding a birth for William only and having to make guesses, but one of the siblings might do just as well and there is a greater certainty of choosing the correct GRO entry for a more unusual name.

Hi Mary

Don't think Homepridefred knows who William's siblings are. He has got the birth cert of Henry, William's son which obviously confirms he is researchinsg the right William Cummings and Elizabeth Giles

I've been looking for Thomas Cuummings in Liverpool records on Anc, but closest is a Porter...Thomas may not be from Liverpool anyway

toughie this one

Simone x

homepridefred wrote: Lilian May, Frederick Stanley, Florence Mabel, Beatrice Maud, Albert, Fany Rosina, Alfred Charles + Henry.

Sorry as I said it's difficult to catch up with a thread after a few weeks, I thought the above were siblings to the person we were searching for and the most obvious entry was Beatrice which I gave the details for.