Hello
I am trying to trace my history. I have found my Great-Great Grandfather (I think) whose name was William Holland married to Mary Ann and living at The Wheatsheaf Inn in Shifnal in 1881. In the 1891 census it would appear that William had passed away as Mary Ann is now married to William Williams and they live at The Old Bell Inn Shifnal. I wonder if there are any bits of information that you could provide me with that will shed a bit of light on these events. William Holland was only 28 in 1881 so i wonder how he died etc. Thank you for reading this
Cris Hooper
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hello Cris
Have you tried to find the Death Registration for William HOLLAND on the FreeBMD web site? If you click Search then select Deaths and enter his Surname and Forename and put 1881 - 1891 as the date range and select Shropshire as the County before clicking Find you should get a handful of results but of those one stands out being aged 36 and registered in the Shifnal Registration District in early 1888 which fits in with the details you have.
You are partially lucky insofar as Mary Ann applied for Administration of his Estate which was granted at Shrewsbury on 23 June 1888 and states that he died on 16 March 1888 at Shifnal and he was an Innkeeper. His Personal Estate amounted to £90 19s 6d. You can view these details on Ancestry or anywhere else that has copies of the National Probate Indexes from 1858 onwards.
If you return to FreeBMD and change the search to Marriages and enter Mary Ann and change the dates to 1888 - 1891 you will find just two appear, one of which is in the Wellington Registration District, Shropshire. By clicking on the page number 1550 you will discover that one of the two possible people she married was William WILLIAMS in the Dec Quarter of 1889.
If you look on the Historical Directories web site you will be able to search some Trade Directories to discover roughly how long William HOLLAND was the Innkeeper. Select 'Find by Keywords' then use the drop down box by 'Select a location' and choose Shropshire then enter William w/1 Holland in the Keywords box and click 'Find Directories'. The 'w/1' tells the search that these two words should be within one word of each other. As an alternative search for the two pub names.
The 1870 Directory is your best bet. Select that then click 'Next hit' near the top until you find something useful.
Mike
Shropshire, UK