Family Trees

Wednesday 3 September 2008

Little Annie Salthouse

My grandfather, Jim Salthouse (James Thomas Salthouse), used to say that he was the seventh son of a seventh son, but when my mother recited the names of her aunts and uncles he turned out to be the youngest son of only five sons - William Salthouse, John Braidwood Salthouse, Francis Walters Salthouse, Alfred Salthouse and himself, James Thomas Salthouse.

The 1881 census (then the only census available online, at Family Search) partly soved the mystery - another child, Richard Salthouse, was listed. Presumably he died young, but he had never been mentioned by my grandfather - possibly conversation never got round to siblings who had been born and died long before my grandfather was born in 1897. So now there were six sons; would there be any more?

Gradually more information became available on Free Bmd and Lancashire Bmd and it is likely that Henry Salthouse, 1888-1889, will prove to be the last son needed to make up the "seven sons" - of which my grandfather would have been the seventh son.

Which brings me to this morning's post. I received a copy of the death certificate of little Annie Salthouse, a previously unknown sister to my grandfather, named after her aunt, Annie Salthouse.The older Annie Salthouse had kept the village shop in Nether Alderley and seemed to have been the head of the family for many years. Little Annie Salthouse died of tubercular meningitis in August 1880, poor little thing, it doesn't alter anything, but I'm glad that she has been found and included in the list of William and Janet Salthouse's 10 children (at the last count).