{"id":925,"date":"2010-12-29T11:23:59","date_gmt":"2010-12-29T11:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/?p=925"},"modified":"2025-07-02T12:57:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T11:57:39","slug":"henry-ridley-from-birmingham-how-do-i-tell-i-have-the-correct-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/henry-ridley-from-birmingham-how-do-i-tell-i-have-the-correct-man","title":{"rendered":"Henry Ridley From Birmingham. How Do I Tell I Have The Correct Man?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Investigating my Ridley family history.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My great-grandmother, Alice Ridley&#8217;s, birth certificate states that her father was <strong><a title=\"Henry Ridley\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hibbitt.org.uk\/familytree\/fam1779.html\">Henry Ridley<\/a><\/strong>, a blacksmith, and her mother, Ann Ridley formerly Cotterill. Henry was &#8216;Harry&#8217; on Alice&#8217;s marriage certificate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I see her family in Birmingham on the 1871 census before Alice was born. Living there are Alice&#8217;s three elder siblings&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2085 size-full\" title=\"Blacksmith (AI Generated)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/blacksmith-1.jpg\" alt=\"Blacksmith (AI Generated)\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/blacksmith-1.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/blacksmith-1-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Henry&#8217;s age is difficult to read but it looks like 30 (b. abt 1841), born in Birmingham, Warwickshire. He is a blacksmith on the census too.<\/li>\n<li>Ann (actually Hannah Maria Cotterill) was born in Dudley Worcestershire in abt 1842.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Joseph (who is Joseph Henry), b. abt 1864 in Wednesbury, Staffs.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mary A, b. abt 1868 in Moxley, Staffs<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Alfred, b. abt 1870 in Derby, Staffs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I&#8217;ve traced Alice&#8217;s mother in later censuses and she was no longer with Henry. She married a George Oakes in 1874 as Cotterill, her maiden name. As I hadn&#8217;t been able to find a marriage between Alice&#8217;s parents, this fits.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My problem is all I have for Henry Ridley is one definite census where his age is uncertain. I believe he might be the same Henry that I see in later censuses living with &#8216;Elizabeth&#8217; in various parts of Lancashire.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Firstly, how might I gather further evidence to support the supposition that my Henry is definitely the one with Elizabeth &#8211; there&#8217;s no marriage again as far as I can see?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Secondly, and even more pertinent is how can I find out who Henry&#8217;s parents were? FreeBMD doesn&#8217;t offer any clues as to his birth. The censuses show a possible family where the father is William and the mother is Lydia. FamilySearch reveals the same family with a baptism in 1839 in St Thomas, Birmingham. However, there may be other possibilities and I don&#8217;t feel there&#8217;s enough to go on so far to be certain that I&#8217;m tracing the correct ancestry. Even if I do manage to find a birth certificate for Henry, what information might it reveal to help me ascertain that he&#8217;s definitely mine?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[<strong>Update<\/strong>: since I first posted, the mystery has been solved with the help of DNA. <strong><a title=\"See this post for details.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/dna-finally-knocks-down-my-brick-wall-ridley-family-history\">See this post for details.<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investigating my Ridley family history. My great-grandmother, Alice Ridley&#8217;s, birth certificate states that her father was Henry Ridley, a blacksmith, and her mother, Ann Ridley formerly Cotterill. Henry was &#8216;Harry&#8217; on Alice&#8217;s marriage certificate. I see her family in Birmingham &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/henry-ridley-from-birmingham-how-do-i-tell-i-have-the-correct-man\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[47,46,45],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-walls","tag-cotterell","tag-cotterill","tag-ridley"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2932,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/2932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}