21st January 2023
I am publishing my novel The Road to Ancona in instalments on this website. A list of current installments is available from the Home page for the series.
10th September 2016
Sidney Algernon Webb
Today the marriage certificate of Sidney Algernon Webb (junior) arrived in the post. This was the most significant development to the history of the family, in recent times.
Sidney was married in 1905 in Suffolk. Although the writing on the certificate is not easy to read, it looks like they were married in the Parish Church at Ringshall, possibly St. Catherines. He married Daisy Elizabeth Bugg. Now that really was a surprise. Given that my grand mother was Emma Bugg. The marriage took place on 12th June. Sidney was 21 and Daisy was 23. The certificate shows that Sidney was a carpenter living in Ringshall and his father was also called Sidney Algernon Webb (although the certificate gives him as ‘deceased’. We know he died in 1901.)
Daisy’s father Robert was present at the marriage because he ‘signed’ the certificate (or rather he made an X instead of his name.) He was an agricultural labourer and could not read or write. Not uncommon in the rural communities of those times.
The other witness to sign the certificate was Rose Agnes Bugg.
My records show that Sidney Algernon Webb (junior) was born in Chelsea in 1886 (although his age on the marriage certificate was shown as 21.) Following his marriage he had two children that I know of: Ivy and Beatrice. We know that he lived in Wangford, Suffolk, and was foreman to the Earl of Stradbroke, at Henham Hall from 1930 to 1939. He died in 1939 and is buried in Wangford at St. Peter’s church.
His father Sidney Algernon Webb (senior) was born in 1855 in Chelsea and was the son of George Webb and Elizabeth Margaret.
Robert Bugg, the father of Daisy, was born in 1838 at Bradfield Combust. I do not yet know the date of his death. He was present at the wedding of his daughter Emma Bugg in 1889 when she married Herbert Arthur Webb at St. Peter’s church, Fulham.
Master list of names completed
Today was also a milestone in the genealogical highway as I completed the master index of all names in the family tree.
Work on compiling an index of genealogical data for my whole family, started many years ago. When I began work on the project, I used a form I designed myself and completed one for each person for which I had a record.
The form recorded such items as date and place of birth, date of marriage and name of the person they married, date and place of death and burial and a list of the children from that person. It was important to annotate the source of that information with codes that referenced back to certificates, printouts and catalogues.
All these sheets were arranged in alphabetical order by surname. It was in August, of this year, that I started to digitalise this index, making it much easier to search for information because it was all in a document that could be searched on the computer.
Now that the index is complete, with well over 100 individuals, finding details of any one person takes only a few seconds. The master index can also be used to store the many notes from other research sources, such as the census returns, searches on the Internet and so on.