Marsden Family: Ancestry, Part 1

Compiling the records of the Marsden family on Ancestry is an ongoing effort. Ancestry includes a series of "hints" of historical and other information that should be added to each person's entry. I try not to include resources without some confirmation that the record is actually for the person in question and is accurate, or agrees with other sources on the family.

Here is my current family tree on the Marsdens. As you can see, I have not traced the family tree past Charles and Mary Ann Hancock Marsden.

The little leaf icons show that there are hints for Charles Marsden and all of the grandparents in the family.

Here is Charles Marsden's current page in the family tree:

I've already attached a series of hints, including connections to ten other family trees. I always connect to other family trees, if their information looks even generally reliable, so that I get notifications if they add other resources, and so they get notifications when I add new resources. I just looked through all the family trees that I've linked to Charles Marsden, and I don't recognize the names of any of the tree owners. Just one of the tree is thoroughly sourced, but that tree has also added a fictitious wife and child to Charles Marsden. That means that I shouldn't rely on any of these family trees and any work I do on this family will need to be based on my own research.

Here are the sources I have in Ancestry on Charles Marsden. First, his U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900. This is a database compiled by Ancestry from Family Search and other sources, and should not be taken as a definitive source. It could be accurate and based on family records, but it could include mistakes. This record shows the following information:

U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900
Name:     Charles Marsden
Gender:     Male
Birth Place:     En[gland]
Birth Year:     1804
Spouse Name:     Mary Ann Hancock
Spouse Birth Place:     En[gland]
Spouse Birth Year:     1803
Marriage Year:     1826
Marriage State:     En[gland]
Number Pages:     1

The citation is given in Ancestry as follows:

Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.

The next record is from the England & Wales Free BMD records. From 1837 to 1915, local English and Welsh government registries made a quarterly report to the General Register Office in London about all the births, marriages and deaths occurring the preceding quarter. The events are listed by quarter, which is why Charles Marsden's death is listed as "Jul-Aug-Sep 1854."

England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index: 1837-1915
Name:     Charles Marsden
Date of Registration:     Jul-Aug-Sep 1854
Registration district:     Chesterfield
Inferred County:     Derbyshire
Volume:     7b
Page:     311

Here is an image of the index showing Charles Marsden's death. I have changed the contrast so it is more readable. Charles is on the fourth line.

Here is his entry.

The entry states that he died in Chesterfield and that the information is in book 7b, page 311. I have not been able to figure out how to access that information.

Here is the citation information for this record:

FreeBMD. England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index: 1837-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office.

You don't have to have Ancestry to access this index. It is also available at the website FreeBMD.

Charles Marsden shows up in two English census records. Here are both of them with complete citations. The citations as I have included them here contain more information than would need to be listed in a book or article.

Census Returns of England and Wales, 1841. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1841. Ancestry.com. 1841 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, 2010. Class: HO107; Piece: 194; Book: 10; Civil Parish: Chesterfield; County: Derbyshire; Enumeration District: 18; ; Page: 1; Line: 1; GSU roll: 241296.

Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851. Ancestry.com. 1851 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Class: HO107; Piece: 2147; Folio: 596; Page: 10; GSU roll: 87779-87780.

The Marsdens in the 1851 census, page 11. (Lucy and Eliza Ann Marsden.)

And that is enough information for one post. I will look at each of these census pages individually in subsequent posts, and continue with the other resources from Ancestry after that.

To be continued...