The Daughter He Left Behind

When in the early 1850s my great-great grandfather bade his final farewell to friends and family in the countryside town of Soham, England, I can only imagine that he carried with him a burden of heart-breaking memories. The scythe of death had winnowed many loved ones, both old and young, from the life of William Aylard. Only months or perhaps weeks earlier, he had buried Fanny (Levet), his wife of nearly ten years, following her death from pulmonary tuberculosis. As he closed the book on this chapter of loss, he brought with him the two surviving children Fanny had borne him: Sarah and William. His firstborn son, also named William, had died five years earlier, just before his first birthday, and would remain behind, buried on the grounds of the local parish church. And yet he left behind more than death and painful memories in Soham: he also left his oldest child, a daughter named Ann.

William Aylard (1814 - 1886)
Private Collection of James A. Aylard

When my uncle gifted me with extensive genealogy resources several years ago, I inherited a considerable trove of family history information onto which I could graft additional research of my own. But in that inherited data, Ann was a perplexity: a limited entry in the genealogy database with little detail beyond her first name (listed there as Anna) and the faint possibility that she had one day produced two sons who might have died in the First World War. Even her mother’s name - and whether that woman and William were actually married - were unknowns.

Ann’s circumstance touched me, and the lack of information about her intrigued me. Why did she remain behind in Soham? Did she live into adulthood? Did she ever marry? Did she have children? Where did life take her, if apparently never to the shores of her father’s adopted American homeland?

Whatever happened to the daughter that William left behind? That is a mystery that I will explore in coming posts.

A Peculiar Practice: Reusing the Names of Deceased Children

The practice may seem jarring to modern sensibilities, but a century and-a-half ago, reusing the name of a dead child for one born at a later time was relatively common. Of course, child mortality was also more common, which no doubt was a factor in the less-sentimental attitudes of that day.

In my own family line, my great-great grandfather, William Aylard, fathered two sons named William by his second wife, Fanny (Levet). I provided some brief detail about the first-born William in my last post. That son was born in 1845 and died less than a year later, in 1846. A year and-a-half after this tragic death, in January 1848, a second son was born to William and Fanny, and he was also named William.

The second William, often named Will in adulthood, emigrated from England to the United States with his father and sister, Sarah, around 1851. After several years living in New York state, Will moved with his father, step-mother, sister and growing family of half-brothers and half-sisters to Ohio where he lived the remainder of his life, until his death in 1915 of a heart condition. He is not known to have ever married or fathered any children.

Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth for William Aylard (1848)¹

Death Certificate for William Aylard (1915)²

1. England, birth certificate (short form) for William Aylard, born 27 January 1848; citing 14/26/260, Newmarket Union registration district; General Registry Office, Southport.
2. State of Ohio, Bureau of Vital Statistics, “Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953,” database, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 28 December 2008), Certificate of Death for William Aylard, File No. 68275 (1915).

Original Sources: William Aylard (1845-1846)

How I am related to
William Aylard
(Click image to see larger copy)

About two years ago, when I began researching the English birth, marriage, and death (BMD) registers for all occurrences of my Aylard surname, I discovered a son of my great-great grandfather, William Aylard, who had not been previously recorded in the family genealogy files. He was the first son of William (1814-1886) and his second wife, Fanny Levet (1815-1851), born on 8 September 1845. Tragically, he died on 5 August 1846, little more than a month shy of his first birthday. His cause of death, as recorded in the death register, was bronchitis.

William Aylard - Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth (1845)¹

William Aylard - Certified Copy of an Entry of Death (1846)²

England, birth certificate (short form) for William Aylard, born 8 September 1845; citing 14/113/456, Newmarket Union registration district; General Registry Office, Southport. England, death certificate (short form) for William Aylard, died 5 August 1846; citing 14/96/405, Newmarket Union registration district; General Registry Office, Southport.

Redux: William Aylard’s Cause of Death Confirmed

When I was in Medina County, Ohio, a couple of weeks back, I spent the better part of two days in the vault of the Probate Court. The County maintains birth, marriage, and death records, among other types of records, that were created prior to centralized records mandated by the state government in about 1908. Many of these county-maintained records span the period of time when our Aylard ancestors lived in Brunswick.

From family sources, I knew that William Aylard, my great-great grandfather, had died on 18 February 1886. I located his death entry (they didn't create death certificates in those days) in the Probate Court vault and found that he had died of diabetes at the age of 72.

I have republished this post from my previous blog, Aylard Family Research.