Hirons update

As I mentioned earlier, my great grandfather was born in Scotland, so - coupled with the fact the family appear to have vanished off the face of England and Wales for the 1891 census, I decided to venture to Scotland's People (here) to see if I could track down his birth record.

No such luck, and neither do the family appear on the 1891 Scottish Census (in fact, the Hirons name is very scarce in Scotland). However, I did find the family (Daniel Sr and his wife Susannah Elizabeth) in Yorkshire in 1881, along with two more children who weren't present in 1901: Samuel and Agnes. This could be because they'd flown the family nest, but I did a search for them both in the death records, and sadly discovered that Samuel had died at the tender age of 9 years and nine months, the same year Henry was born. Full details were provided once I've coughed up the money for 30 credits - six of which were used in researching Samuel's death. The Scottish records are far more thorough than the English and Welsh ones - they give you the actual entry rather than the index.

24 credits were still burning a hole in the back of my pocket, so I broadened by search for dead Hirons to the full gamut of the index (1850-1950 or therabouts) and discovered about 10 entries in total. Most of these were in the 20th Century, but two - George and Robert - occured in the 1890s, and both were babes when they passed on. With a sinking feeling I checked each one in turn, and sadly they were both Daniel and Susannah's children (Robert was just 15 days old when he died). It appeared the family moved around quite a bit in Scotland, so I guess the conditions weren't the best (in fact, it's a minor miracle Henry survived to sire the rest of his line!).

A couple of positives came from this: I could find no record of Daniel and Susannah's marriage in the archives, but based on the census data I suspected her maiden name was Taylor. The death records confirmed this, establishing a link with her past I shall follow up in due course. Second, while no one bothered to record Henry's birth, both George and Robert's births were occured, and part of the details recorded were the date and location of their wedding day, so another gap has been filled in there.

George proved to be a popular name with this branch of the Hirons family - not only did my grandfather take the name, but another son - who appears in the 1901 census aged three - was named George too.

[Listening to: Star Fleet - Brian May & Friends - (08:06)]