The Mystery of Mignall

I have always had some interest in family history but my cousin sparked it off recently by emailing me asking certain questions. Within a few hours I had joined http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ and was creating my family tree online! (You can get a two week trial period from ancestry.co.uk) For the next week or two I was hooked and one Saturday I actually sat, in my dressing gown, on the lap top ALL DAY! from when my husband went out in the morning at 10am to when I thought, at 5pm, I better start thinking about getting ready as we were going out at 7pm. The only times I moved was when either I or the dog wanted food, drink or a wee!

I have been researching both my father and my mother's side of the family. My father's mother, my Grandma, lived at home with us for 3 0r 4 years after my Grandpa died, until her own death. She used to tell me stories about her brothers and sisters, and I felt I 'knew' them even though I only ever met two of them; the rest had died when I was very little or before I was born.

In age order they were: Alexander, Marie, Augusta, Clara, Beatrice, Herbert and George. Beatrice was my Grandma.

Ancestry.co.uk gives you access to certain census, birth, death and other records. I became totally fascinated with the above family, and of course all my other deceased relatives. But the Mystery of Mignall is to do with those above.

Their father, my great-grandfather had a distinctive name and I was pleased when he turned up easily when I searched. Often someone doesn't come up, even though you know you have the right name and it is so frustrating. I looked at the 1881 census and found great-grandfather, his wife and his two eldest children listed as living in the house where I knew they had lived. Alexander was 4 years old and Marie, 3. Each individual is listed as to how they are related to the head of the house. Therefore Alexander was listed as 'son' and Marie, 'daughter'. I was startled to see another name listed as a 'daughter' to my great-grandfather - Mignall. Who on earth was Mignall? No age was given, and what a strange name. The family was German though. Maybe a German name?

So I looked at the image of the actual census record. Carl was listed as head of the house, aged 42. His occupation was 'lodging house keeper', which I knew. His wife was listed as Louisa, aged 33. Her name was in fact Henrietta Louisa. The children were Alexander, 4 years, Marie, 3 years and Mignall - whose age was given on the actual document as 10 months.

I didn't understand. My grandma had never mentioned another child. But then she was the third youngest and maybe Mignall had been born and died, poor little thing, and maybe Grandma never knew about her. After all, in those days many babies did die, and of course lots of other babies had followed, in that family. It was a bit of a shock to me to find out about a baby I had never heard of before. The family had been a strong, loving one and to have a little baby sister who died, after the age of 10 months, is very sad indeed.

I emailed two of the three of my sisters who use email - have you ever heard of Mignall? Neither of them had, but one suggested that Mignall was in fact Augusta or Clara. Well, I thought, why would that be? Why would parents name their child Mignall and at some stage after ten months old rename her Clara or Augusta? Perhaps they had had time to have a child after Alexander and Marie and before Augusta or Clara? At that time I didnt know the exact birth dates of any of the children - I just knew that Alexander was eldest and Marie next.

I was determined to find out more. It was rather difficult to trace the birth dates of the children, but I found out that Augusta had been born in the July/Aug/Sept quarter of 1880. I didnt get this info from ancestry.co.uk despite having access to a search in the records. It actually turned up when I was seaching on genesreunited (in general not such a good site, imo) The birth records only list the quarter that the birth has been registered in, not the actual date of birth. As parents have quite a while in which to register the birth of a child - 40 days or something, then a child could well be born at the end of say, January, and not registered until March. This particular census was taken on the night of 3rd April 1881 and at that time Augusta would have been ten months old.

So Augusta must be Mignall.

I was glad that Mignall hadn't died but still very confused about the name. Mignall wasnt Augusta's second, or third name, as I had proof that her name was Augusta Louisa from her death certificate - a copy of which I found in all the old paperwork my father had left. By the way, death certificates don't give you a date of birth - well, I haven't seen a recent one but they didn't when Augusta died in 1965.

The only other census that Augusta was listed in was the 1901 census when she and her sister, Marie, both unmarried and aged 20 and 24, were living alone together. In that census, Marie is listed as Head of the House and Augusta's name is listed as 'Auguste'.

I emailed my sister to tell her that Mignall had to be Augusta, but I was a little sad, strangely, that Mignall had never existed! You're weird! she replied. First you were upset because you thought Mignall had died, and now you're sad because she didn't exist!

Ok, so Mignall was Augusta, but what was 'Mignall' all about? - that's the mystery!

I worked it out! Can you?

Tell me if you think you know, and I'll tell you the answer in my next blog. I'll also tell you about the photo!