Who is Hannah Genders, and why should you care?
The first answer is she is my 3x great grandmother. As for why you should care, well, she’s missing and we all enjoy a good mystery. Every person has a fascinating story to tell. Hannah’s is proving very elusive, but without her I wouldn’t be here now typing this text, so I don’t want to leave her forgotten. I want to discover her story. From your perspective, Hannah could represent the huge number of untold stories out there, of people who lived and, whether their descendants give them a second thought or not, mattered. Digging for clues in old records and piecing them together to draw conclusions and create narratives is my way of bringing forgotten individuals back to life. That’s what I’m hoping to do for Hannah.
Who is this blog for? Anyone, but especially anyone with an interest in family history research strategies, anyone struggling with their own brick wall, anyone interested in nineteenth-century Birmingham, and anyone who enjoys a puzzle. Basically I’m treating my ancestor’s disappearance like a cold case… an exceedingly cold case. She left very little trace and all witnesses are long dead.
This was the information I started out with:
Year of birth: unknown
Place of birth: unknown
Parents names: unknown
Married: unknown
Spouse: unknown
Occupation: unknown
Lived in: Birmingham between the years 1846 and 1848
Year of death: unknown
Not a lot to go on is it? So why am I looking for her? Well, as I say above, she is a direct ancestor of mine, and many of her descendants continued to use the Genders name. I am keen to discover precisely which branch of the Genders family tree is mine. Hannah hasn’t made it easy though. It’s like she was beamed down to earth to give birth to my 2x great grandfather and then simply disappeared in a cloud of smoke. I have trawled all the typical records and combed through old newspapers. Nothing. Not a trace. Certainly nothing concrete enough for me to say “yep, that’s her”.
What evidence do I have that the woman even existed? The answer is two documents. The first, dated 8th April 1846, registers the birth of Hannah’s daughter, Mary Hannah Whilock. Whilock is a variant spelling of Wheelock, which was Mary’s father’s name. As far as I can tell, Hannah never married my 3x great grandfather, William Wheelock, so I suspect she fibbed when she registered the birth. On this date in 1846, Hannah was living on Lionel Street, Birmingham. It is one of only two locations I can place her in with any certainty.
The second location was nearby Henrietta Street where Hannah gave birth to John Whilock on 1st December 1848. And then? Nothing. She vanishes.
These birth records give me no clue about Hannah’s family. If she left Birmingham to reunite with her family, I don’t know where. There may have been a very good reason why Hannah might want to get away from Birmingham, as I will cover in the blog. This potentially makes this research even more difficult. Hannah may have not wanted to be found. She may have adopted another name. Or, she may have died, and I have been unable to discover the relevant records. Perhaps there is no such record.
With so little to go on searching for Hannah herself, I have been delving into the lives of the people closest to her; her son, and his father (sadly her daughter Mary died aged 2). Now, I have no evidence that Hannah was ever involved in her son’s life, but I can’t discount it as a possibility. That said, at no point in any of my research have I found any instance of John in the same place as anyone called Genders. Nor do his children ever appear with anyone called Genders. If John had any relationship with his maternal family, there is no paper trail. There are two possibilities to consider here. Either the Genders family were too distant, i.e. in another county, to play a regular role in John’s life; or, maybe Hannah was alone. Perhaps her parents had died, and she had no siblings, or she was isolated from her family somehow. All I can say is up to now, exploring the lives of Hannah’s descendants has brought me no closer to identifying her family.
Researching William Wheelock has proved similarly unfruitful in terms of discovering Hannah’s origins. It has, however, given me a window into the dangerous world that Hannah was navigating. William was a volatile man and any sort of relationship with him was risky. The area of Birmingham she was living in was very poor and came with its own risks in terms of health and crime.
In this blog I have presented my discoveries in my ongoing search for Hannah. I have managed to rule out some contenders, but my Hannah still remains elusive for now. If anyone has any source suggestions or other ideas where I should look for her then by all means get in touch.
Who is this blog for? Anyone, but especially anyone with an interest in family history research strategies, anyone struggling with their own brick wall, anyone interested in nineteenth-century Birmingham, and anyone who enjoys a puzzle. Basically I’m treating my ancestor’s disappearance like a cold case… an exceedingly cold case. She left very little trace and all witnesses are long dead.
This was the information I started out with:
Year of birth: unknown
Place of birth: unknown
Parents names: unknown
Married: unknown
Spouse: unknown
Occupation: unknown
Lived in: Birmingham between the years 1846 and 1848
Year of death: unknown
Not a lot to go on is it? So why am I looking for her? Well, as I say above, she is a direct ancestor of mine, and many of her descendants continued to use the Genders name. I am keen to discover precisely which branch of the Genders family tree is mine. Hannah hasn’t made it easy though. It’s like she was beamed down to earth to give birth to my 2x great grandfather and then simply disappeared in a cloud of smoke. I have trawled all the typical records and combed through old newspapers. Nothing. Not a trace. Certainly nothing concrete enough for me to say “yep, that’s her”.
What evidence do I have that the woman even existed? The answer is two documents. The first, dated 8th April 1846, registers the birth of Hannah’s daughter, Mary Hannah Whilock. Whilock is a variant spelling of Wheelock, which was Mary’s father’s name. As far as I can tell, Hannah never married my 3x great grandfather, William Wheelock, so I suspect she fibbed when she registered the birth. On this date in 1846, Hannah was living on Lionel Street, Birmingham. It is one of only two locations I can place her in with any certainty.
The second location was nearby Henrietta Street where Hannah gave birth to John Whilock on 1st December 1848. And then? Nothing. She vanishes.
These birth records give me no clue about Hannah’s family. If she left Birmingham to reunite with her family, I don’t know where. There may have been a very good reason why Hannah might want to get away from Birmingham, as I will cover in the blog. This potentially makes this research even more difficult. Hannah may have not wanted to be found. She may have adopted another name. Or, she may have died, and I have been unable to discover the relevant records. Perhaps there is no such record.
With so little to go on searching for Hannah herself, I have been delving into the lives of the people closest to her; her son, and his father (sadly her daughter Mary died aged 2). Now, I have no evidence that Hannah was ever involved in her son’s life, but I can’t discount it as a possibility. That said, at no point in any of my research have I found any instance of John in the same place as anyone called Genders. Nor do his children ever appear with anyone called Genders. If John had any relationship with his maternal family, there is no paper trail. There are two possibilities to consider here. Either the Genders family were too distant, i.e. in another county, to play a regular role in John’s life; or, maybe Hannah was alone. Perhaps her parents had died, and she had no siblings, or she was isolated from her family somehow. All I can say is up to now, exploring the lives of Hannah’s descendants has brought me no closer to identifying her family.
Researching William Wheelock has proved similarly unfruitful in terms of discovering Hannah’s origins. It has, however, given me a window into the dangerous world that Hannah was navigating. William was a volatile man and any sort of relationship with him was risky. The area of Birmingham she was living in was very poor and came with its own risks in terms of health and crime.
In this blog I have presented my discoveries in my ongoing search for Hannah. I have managed to rule out some contenders, but my Hannah still remains elusive for now. If anyone has any source suggestions or other ideas where I should look for her then by all means get in touch.