Without a budget to purchase civil registration certificates and wills my research is dependent on local and online resources and sometimes it does involve a bit of detective work. Take for example Thomas Anne Fergusson who died on March 5, 1886 at 9 Rolleston Street, Swindon. Consulting the work of family historians on Ancestry, I was fortunate to come across this photograph of Thomas Anne. A clue to her movements is in the name of the photographer – Robert H. Preston, Penzance.
The Swindon link to this woman is her daughter Sophia Catherine Fergusson with whom she lived at the time of her death. Both women were born in Ireland and it would seem that Thomas Anne was probably known as Florence, using her official name on formal documents only.
Thomas Anne married Benjamin Tierney Fergusson at St Peter’s, Dublin on October 21, 1847. Sophie Catherine was born in Dublin in 1851 and just three years later her father died. The whereabouts of Thomas Anne and her young daughter between 1851 and 1881 are yet to be discovered. Sophia Catherine married Martin Etheridge in St. Mary’s, Penzance in 1883. On the entry in the marriage register her father is recorded as Benjamin Fergusson (deceased). The photograph of her mother, then aged 75, was taken in a Penzance photographic studio.
In 1886 Sophia and Martin lived in Swindon where Thomas Anne died. Both are mentioned as beneficiaries on Thomas Anne’s will. By 1891 Sophia and Martin and their three young children were living in Prestbury, Cheltenham where Martin worked as a Market Gardener.
The Etheridge family kept on moving and Sophia died in 1923 in Crickhowell, Breckonshire. Anyone researching Thomas Anne’s Swindon family (like me) would come up against a bit of a brick wall as there wasn’t one.
Thomas Anne Fergusson was buried on March 8, 1886 in grave plot A1062 where she lies alone.
Radnor Street Cemetery 