Although William Moore died in 1890, his widow Elizabeth formerly Hoskins, appeared in another three census reports, surviving to 1914 when she died age 92.
The 1911 census aimed to gather new information from each married woman: how many years they had been married, how many children had been born alive, the number still living and a count of the number who had already died. The intention was that this data was only collected for the woman's current marriage, without reference to any previous marriage, without counting step-children, and without any data required from widows or husbands
However, Elizabeth Moore, Widow, filled in these columns on her census form. She wrote that her marriage had produced 13 children, of which 4 were still living and 9 had died. This called for a review to see if I could ascribe 13 children to Elizabeth and work out which 4 were still alive in 1911, with confirmation about the deaths of the other 9 of her children before 1911, if possible.
To date, I have only been able to identify 11 birth registrations for William Moore and Elizabeth. They married in 1842, a unnamed baby girl was born and died a year later. After that births were registered every two to two-and-a-half years until 1864, when Elizabeth was in her mid 40s. There is no apparent gap in the sequence to suggest there is a child missing on the timeline. However, I am still open to that possibility.
Then there was the little matter of confirming who were the parents of all the others in the set of 21 children that included my great-grandmother Moore. Phoebe Moore who is age 9 on the 1851 census seems likely to be the Phoebe Hoskins whose birth was registered in 1841 with no father named.
William's oldest children were born before civil registration began, following his marriage to Hester Dowland. The next blog post will be all about them. Meanwhile, the middle of William's three wives, Amelia Lear, died only one-and-a-half years after their marriage. She did feature on the 1841 census as part of the family but apparently did not contribute any children to the flock. As with the rest of the details about this large family, I await correction or new information from descendants or other enthusiasts.