That's Life (and Death) . . . unless you know better

[Bryman]

What is the record for resurections?

I believe that there are reports of an occurrence about 2000 years ago but wonder if I may have uncovered documented evidence for much more recent times. Let me set out the timeline . . .

1867 - the second cousin, Amelia, of my ggf married William, born in 1844.
1871 - Amelia gave birth to a daughter, Charlotte.
1871 - the UK census records Amelia (as a widow) and Charlotte living with Amelia's parents.
1876 - Amelia gave birth to a son, James. There is no record of a second marriage.
1881 - the UK census records Amelia as head of the household and a widow for the second time.
1881 - Amelia gave birth to another son, George, after the census.
1891 - the UK census records the whole happy family reunited with
William (b. 1844) as head of the household,
Amelia (b. 1850), his wife,
Charlotte (b. 1871), his daughter,
James (b. 1876), his son,
George (b.1881), his son,

We all know how accurate some of these census transcriptions are so I checked with the images of the hand written originals and both 1871 and 1881 clearly show Amelia as a widow, in different hand writing so presumably written by different enumerators.

Does this count as a single resurection or can it be counted as two? If only one, then the birth of James should surely be some other sort of record.

 

[Britjan]

What is the record for resurections?

I think it's about the same as the number of males listed on a census as daughters or widows and females as sons or widowers!! That is why I regard census information as a corroboration of all BMD and parish records etc but not vice versa. Mind you it might be wishful thinking on Amelia's part and I presume you had not found a death record for William in the interim years nor that he was lurking in some other county and dutifully recorded in the census . I'd be more interested in where he disappeared to myself. Of course if it had been 4o years he might have been in a wilderness, but there is already a record for that.

 

[Bryman]

I presume you had not found a death record for William in the interim years nor that he was lurking in some other county and dutifully recorded in the census.

Correct. I saw nothing wrong at first and was no more than customarily disappointed when I failed to find the registration of death. Similarly, when James was born, I looked for a second marriage rather than assume a casual relationship. After all she was still very young - in her early twenties. The birth was registered with her married surname so I was not surprised that there was no second marriage.

The birth of George was more of a surprise and I thought that was becoming a bit of a habit. Still, all trees have skeletons buried somewhere.

The 1891 census was like a hammer blow. I never expected such a reversal and went back looking for anything that I may have overlooked. I have since wondered if William may have been detained at her majesty's pleasure and the statement about widowhood was just to keep things looking respectable although that does not account for the births of James and George. There's more to genealogy than writing names and dates on pieces of paper.