The person who is the focus of this blog, is only related to my one-name study surname (Pullum) by my parent’s marriage. Pullum is my paternal grandmother’s maiden name, and this story is about the father of my maternal grandmother.

The are numerous mistakes that one can make when researching one’s family tree. The commonest is probably mistaking one person for another with the same name e.g. John Brown and John Brown (my father, grandfather, great-grandfather etc.)
I have chosen to review another common mistake and not one that led to a delay in constructing the family tree but one that took up a lot of my time when I started my genealogical research. The mistake is to believe something that has been told to you by a family member. However, this was not the usual rumour of a famous ancestor, connection to a historical event or even that the Pullums were French (the truth being that Joseph Pullum married a Huguenot in 1780).

The information was about a relatively recent event. My mother was told by her mother that her grandfather, Samuel Broomfield had died in a workhouse from alcohol. My grandmother said she remembered visiting him in a “strange” place when she was about 8 years old, and implied that this was just before he died. This information felt crucial in helping me find core information for starting my family tree.

My great grandfather, Samuel Broomfield was born on the 22^nd of June 1863 in Walthamstow, Essex (now London). On the17th of November 1884, he married Jane (known as Jennie) Goodwin in St. Thomas Church, Bethnal Green, London. They had eleven children, of which my grandmother was the youngest (another piece of misinformation was that both my mother’s parents were 13^th children!).

So from the information received, I estimated that Samuel Broomfield had died in about 1918 and my search for the details began.

This was in the days before the numerous computerised databases we have now, and I ended up making many trips to look at those big heavy books containing the BMD indexes. I searched and searched again, extending the range of years each time. I couldn’t believe that the information was more than10 years out!  However, that was another mistake – restricting my searches to 10 years after his alleged death.

I considered the fact that his death was probably during or just after WWI. Samuel was 51 at the start of the war and therefore not subject to conscription, but it was possible he had served and been killed abroad. As computerised records became available, I found army records for his son Samuel but none that were convincingly related to him.

It turned out that the story was partially true. Samuel Broomfield died aged 71 on the 3^rd of July 1934 of a cerebral haemorrhage in Central Home, Leytonstone. The informant was his son Samuel.
Although his death was about 16 years later than I had initially thought, Central Home, Leytonstone had previously been the West Ham Union Workhouse. It was renamed Central Home after WWI and became a home for the chronic sick, aged and infirm.
I do not know when Samuel entered the home, and records for the male inmates have been lost.

The Queens Road Cemetery register however, has his place of death as 53 Netley Road, Walthamstow. This almost fits with other information, as from 1924 to at least 1946 some of the family was living at 55 and 57 Netley Road, Walthamstow^.[1]
And, although again according to the family, Samuel had lived with his son Sammy for some time, Samuel jnr. was living in Northcote Road in 1934, as he was the informant on his father’s death.

However, the story does not end there. Many years later, I had contact with a second cousin (grandson of Samuel’s eldest son Samuel) who was also researching the family tree. He had a photograph that suggested an explanation for why my grandmother thought her father had died sooner than he did.
The photograph was of Samuel in a car (a big surprise as the family certainly would not have been able to afford one, although his previous occupation had been a carman) and on the edge of the photo is the arm of a woman. It is thought that this arm is not my great grandmother’s!

So, now another possible scenario exists.
Maybe Great grandfather Samuel had a relationship with another woman and his wife told their youngest daughter that he had died. Perhaps as in “he is dead to me”.
Or perhaps did he go into the home as a middle-aged man and remained there for nearly 30 years?

There are still questions about his life and death, but the date of my great-grandfather’s death at least has been proved. It just took a few more years to the find the answer than if I had not restricted myself to search years that fitted with the family information.

[1] At 55 Netley Road: 1924 Son William’s residence at time of marriage (certificate); 1936 Son Bertie’s residence at time of marriage 1936 (certificate); 1939 Jennie & daughter Florence’s residence (1939 register); 1946 Daughter Florence recorded with this address (mother’s cemetery register, mother Jennie’s address was 1 Queens Road)
At 57 Netley Road: On the 1939 Register are George Worth and his son, the widow and son of daughter Annie Broomfield.

Uploaded 25.09.2024

Second of the Guild of One-Name Studies Blog Challenge