Seemingly accidentally I have become one of those genealogy nerds. In no way deliberately, I started plotting a now 74-person family tree on Ancestry.com and the curious history student in me has taken over. In no time at all I have documented all the immediately known relatives on my mother's side of the family and am now fascinated by the mystery of a disappearing relative: Samuel Langford.
Somewhat at a loss, I am hoping by throwing my questions onto the web, answers might follow in the comments box below.
The mystery began with a newspaper clipping my mother sent me about a Dan Foster who "with his handlebar moustache, was a real character," managed the Picture Palace Cinema on Radcliffe Road in Bolton until his death in 1937. This led me on to his mother, Violet Ann Foster (nee Rowland) who I found in the 1901 Census living with Daniel, his wife and four children, until her death in 1908.
What is interesting about Violet is her first husband. In 1859 she married a Samuel Langford from Cheshire. Samuel seems to have grown up in service, listed in the 1851 Census as working as a "Plough Lad" in domestic service in Thornton Le Moors in Cheshire as a 16 year old. In the 1861 Census (above) he is living with his new wife, 22 year old Violet Ann. Two years after their marriage, they do not have children.
Three years later in 1864 Violet has a son, also named Samuel Langford. That same year, Violet Ann Rowland marries a chap called John Foster whose profession seems quite indiscernible from the couple of Census records I saw but I think it had something to do with Iron.
That same year Samuel Langford disappears No death certificate and no further Census appearances. His son, Samuel Langford, becomes variously Samuel Foster and later Samuel Langford Foster. John and Violet have a further three children including my Great, Great Grandfather Daniel Butler "handlebar moustache" Foster.
Curiously, by the 1911 Census, the Foster family crop up in Little Bolton and living among them - three years after Violet Ann's death - is a 19-year old Samuel Langford Foster. Of the six children born to electrical engineer Daniel Butler Foster and his wife Mary Ann - including my Great Grand Mother Violet - only Samuel has a middle name.
What happened to Samuel Langford in 1864 when his son was born and his wife married another man? Why did he and his 22 year old wife not have children until some five years after their marriage? Why is his name preserved in two subsequent generations of Fosters? Why is there no record of this man subsequent to the 1851 Census?
(Until Posthaven get the comments function up and running, if you've any answers please email me at mrgareth2005 at gmail dot com or tweet me at @mrgareth)