In Search of Stanley

Denzil was reportedly adopted. This was in response to Peter's comment about DNA that has now disappeared.

 

I always find it easiest to search for the entry on FREEBMD and then look up the entry on the GRO site to find the mother's maiden name. The limited search options on the GRO site are very frustrating.

 

I agree there is a good chance this is the marriage, and it seems to have been 'til death us do part' thereafter. Elizabeth's death certificate (also attached to Steamerpoint's tree) shows she died 23 March 1886, and the informant is Robert Jones, widower of deceased, present at the death. Hopefully she had a happy marriage in the end. I imagine Henry Morton Stanley was quite famous in Elizabeth's later years, but I don't suppose she knew he was her son!

 

On further investigation, it seems his mother did know who he was, and met him on more than one occasion. This 1872 newspaper article gives lots of interesting details. It doesn't say who his father was, though (other than his 'real' name was John Rowlands), or where he and his mother were when he was a baby!

 

Yes - I have trouble remembering exactly how old my thirty-something sons are too!

 

I have "caught up" with this thread with GREAT fascination and enjoyment. THANKS to all the contributors!!

 

Apparently Robert Jones presented Elizabeth's tea-tray to H.M. Stanley's bride as a wedding present in 1890, at his lavishly reported wedding in Westminster Abbey. The details come at the end of a vast list of wedding presents, and might be worth a glance (Manchester Courier, 14 July 1890: "Mr. Robert Jones, of the Cross Foxes Inn, St. Asaph, who married Mr. H.M. Stanley's mother, has sent to Miss Tennant, Stanley's bride, a curious and yet valuable tea-tray belonging to Stanley's late mother, the card of presentation being thus inscribed: 'Hir oes a thangnefedd i'r ddauddyn. The favourite tea-tray of Mrs. Jones, of Glascoed, St. Asaph, North Wales, mother of Henry M. Stanley, Esq., presented to Miss Dorothy Tennant, by Robert Jones, the bereaved widower, on the occasion of her marriage with his illustrious stepson. - Cross Foxes, Glascoed, July 9th, 1890.'"

 

Certainly a lavish wedding, judging by the newspaper reports. I wonder what the groom put as his father's name on the marriage register? Not that it would tell us who his real father was, but I'm just curious.

I know Stanley publicly denied being Welsh for many years (again if newspaper reports are to be believed), but he had clearly reversed that denial well before his wedding. One report I read (Grantham Journal, 19 July 1890) quoted his bride as saying (in a letter to her agent), in response to a present from people on her family's estate in South Wales: "I wished I could rush off to Wales and grasp every friend's hand which has tendered to me this loyal present. But you will convey to them, will you not, my heartfelt thanks. Tell them how proud I am to have this grand Welsh present to show my grand Welsh husband. When he comes to Wales, let us all meet together at Neath, so that he may thank you eloquently, as I cannot do."

Clearly, he needed to admit his Welshness to regain his British nationality, and thus qualify for his knighthood (now aren't I being the cynical one...)

 

As John was baptised in early 1841 his birth could have been registered in late 1840. There is a birth record for a John Parry registered in Q4 1840, St Asaph, volume 27, page 202. In the GRO index there is no mothers name given however in find my past it gives the mother's maiden as Parry. Could this be the correct record. Though I had assumed FMP were getting the mother's maiden names from the GRO records so how they got this one i do not know.

 

It does look like 'Bastard' was inserted in afterwards, but I'm not sure about Parry. The father's occupation is written near the top of the relevant box, level with his name, whereas in most of the entries above, the occupation is written nearer the middle of the box. This suggests both surnames might already have been entered before the occupation was written in.

 

Fair point. I had forgotten that.

 

I'm still following this discussion with interest to see what arises. I have yet to actually see the entry, a screen shot would be good, please.