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Showing posts from December, 2020

A tale of three weddings, pt 3 – Hannah’s story.

                                                                                  The church at Kirk Ireton, Derbyshire Hannah Slater was born in the Derbyshire village of Kirk Ireton in 1842. In 1864 she married William Holyland in Ashbourne and their daughter was born the following day but lived only a few weeks. William subsequently joined the army and, many years later, remarried, but there was no record of Hannah’s death. Neither did any of the subsequent censuses include a Hannah Holyland of her age and birthplace. What had happened to her? I realised that my spreadsheets contained another possible clue - a mystery Holyland baptism. On September 15 1867 Joseph Holyland was baptised in Kirk Ireton, with his mother’s name given as Hannah and no father named. Joseph (“an infant”) was buried just 5 days later. Surely this had to be connected? The plot thickened with the realisation that there is neithe r birth nor death listed on freeBMD for Joseph Holyland at this time and pl