It’s never easy to know where to start with a case study like this, with threads that spin off in every direction. As, with so many of the best family history stories, it doesn’t really have a beginning or an end.
So, what's the story?
It revolves around a woman called Kate Wright who was born on 14 November 1873 in Southwark, south London and died, as Kathleen Oliver, in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford on 19 December 1946.
She had married a man called William Oliver in Lambeth on 19 September 1908 and, if all we were interested in was collecting and recording the dates of Kate’s ‘vital’ events, that would be the end of the story.
But as we will see, there was so much more to learn about Kate’s life.
Birth certificate of Kate Wright Brown
1. The birth was registered by her mother but much of the information recorded is a lie. Henry and Emma were not married and Emma’s maiden surname was Brown. It was her mother who was called Cooper. General Register Office: DEC 1873, St Saviour, 1d 183
Marriage of Charles Albert Gustave Theurer and Kate Eddy at St Ann, Westminster
Charles (Carl) and Kate were married on 5 April 1891, which also happened to
