Scandals

I hope the following doesn't sound too dry, but I've been asked to write it up, and this is the best place to publish it.

We have a family tree that involves one (Frederick) John Coombe and his wife Elizabeth Drown, who both came from the same part of Devon, but married in London in 1874, then emigrated to New Zealand the following year.  Their daughter Ada Coombe was my mother's maternal grandmother.  It seems most likely his name was originally John, but he sometimes used Frederick.

As well as the tree (largely put together by Devon researchers hired by my grandfather), there's a couple of postcards handed down.  It revolves around the parish of Kenn.

Kenn Church 13351

On the back of the card:

at back of Kenn Church

The original writing on the back says, in order of execution:

Dear Cousin, this is a photo of Kenn Church where your Father and my Father Elijah Coombe, Uncles Henry, William, George, James were Choristers in their white surplices.
Will

Beside the Belfry Door of this Church, Grandma and Grandpa Coombe, Uncle George and my Father lies buried.

When we went there, My mother recognised the church very well, from a line drawing of it that her mother had, signed 'John Coombe'.  The grass beside the belfry door was vacant, but in my experience of Devon churchyards, this could easily be because the original markers had fully deteriorated, and the graves just become mowed lawn.

A few days later, I went to the Devon Heritage Centre in Exeter, where all old parish registers are eventually sent.  I looked up Ada's father, [Frederick] John Coombe (son of John Coombe b.1808, North Bovey and Mary Andrews), who purported to be born in Kennford (Kenn Parish) in 1853.  I looked up the original microfiche for that year, and it was far too indistinct - so I asked for the original register to get information that could only be gleaned by being onsite in Exeter.  It came with a cushion I was required to lay it on to read the book.

No dice.  I also looked at the draft register, which was the rector's notebook of information he intended to lay down formally in the register.  No dice.

I also looked through the provided online records for all births for 1853/54.  I found one for Frederick John Coombe, 1853 in Honiton, east of Exeter; another for John Coombe in 1854, St Thomas, Exeter.  Unusually, the online records had no information other than the name and year of birth - no parents listed.

I then found a marriage record for his parents: John Coombe and Mary Ann Andrews were married in Exeter - on 25 October 1861.  Eight years after FJ's birth.  So far, my best guess was they weren't married at the time FJ was born, and so couldn't get the birth (baptism) registered in their home parish.

There was another postcard, of their abode in Kennford in the same parish:

Kennford Village.  inscription: "X in 1876     X  Grandma and Grandpa Coombe died here"

I actually managed to find this scene and the house marked, after a few false starts:

Kennford Village, 2019

It's just next to the intersection with Exeter Road.  I knocked on the door, but the woman who answered wasn't having a bar of it.  Not interested.  Anyway...

At the Devon Heritage Centre, I wanted to track FJ Coombe son of John.  The 1851 census showed John Sr in two places at once: in his own family, and in a household headed by William and Mary Ann Coombe: as John Coombe, tailor, 43, nephew of William Coombe, who was 45 (both born in North Bovey).  Okay, so they were a similar age, but John was actually William's nephew, and so Elijah's uncle, not brother... and so Will's assumption that he and Ada shared grandparents was wrong. (Why two places at once?  I've seen this census phenomenon before, and I'd say he happened to be visiting his uncle on the night, and ended up being counted twice.

Between the 1851 and 1861 Censuses, John and Mary Coombe were in Kenton; all the uncles listed in the postcard were John's.  And I've had a great deal of trouble tracking down Ada's father, except as John Coombe within his family, and only listed as Frederick John with certainty on the marriage record - which was in London, far from Devon and any records that could verify.

I found one birth record for FJ's wife Elizabeth Drown in 1842: in Tavistock (as opposed to our family records listing Port Gate, Stowford).  Again no parent information.

I've whittled down the story to its bones: there's a number of other details I've found, not all of which are consistent.  And there are gaps.  And a few surmises.

Here I'm extrapolating, but I get the impression both FJ and Elizabeth (Ada's parents) felt they could find no peace with their murky past (FJ is proven born out of wedlock).  In London in 1874 they married (he called himself Frederick John and said he was 23, not 20; Elizabeth was 31) - then they went further afield to New Zealand, where they could give details of their past which could hardly be checked (although they stayed correct on a few details).

Historians beware: a death certificate which contains details about a person's past is only certain for the information about the current event: the death.  Likewise a marriage certificate.  And so on.  One ancestor's death certificate recorded that he'd got married in Bolton - probably because he'd said something to his daughter, who'd misheard him say Dolton (mid-Devon) - which he'd misremembered anyway, because he's verified to have wed in Petrockstow.  This chain caused endless confusion for subsequent family historians - I've read all the letters about it.


Ada's daughter, my grandmother, apparently feared above all else the possibility of her daughters having a baby out of wedlock.  They could fail exams, anything but a baby out of wedlock.  This was drilled into my mother.  Likely because Ada had some awareness of her parents' past.

So the events of the past can still have some ripples 150 years later.