June 2002

At the beginning of this month I was rereading all the Census records and parish records that I had collected when I noticed on the same page of the record for Frederick Pudwine’s baptism, a family of Saunders right above the entry for Frederick. The details were for John Saunders, dated 13 January 1833, son of John and Caroline Saunders of Shalford, Surrey. The father’s occupation was papermaker.

This gave me further confidence that Harriet had once lived in the area of Guildford, because when William first moved to Albury his occupation was also papermaker. Maybe a relative of Harriet’s found him some work while he was looking for something in his own trade of wheelwright.

A visit to Surrey History Centre resulted in the discovery of the baptism record for John Voller, son of John and Charlotte Voller, dated 19 June 1831, and also a copy of the banns of marriage between John Valler (Voller) and Charlotte Marsh dated 7, 14, and 21 September 1828.

Another search on the FamilySearch site took me back several generations, in some cases as far as 1562. I will have to verify this information at a future date with Surrey History Centre so I will not confuse you any more by listing this exciting but still questionable information.

Although my latest finds are fascinating I desperately want to source records of more recent ancestors and solve some queries:

• I needed details of the birth or christening of William Podevin and who his parents were as I now suspected that William was descended from French origins with possible links to the French Revolution or the Huguenots.
• I still had not found birth certificates for Emily or Harriet Voller, Frederick and Henry’s wives.
• Nor had I found the birth certificate for Thomas Pudwine, son of William and Harriet.
• I had not found a marriage certificate for Frederick Pudvine to Maria Webber or for two of their children listed on the 1881 Census as Eliza and George.
• I also wanted to find details of my granddad on my father’s side of the family; Charles Maloney, born, it is believed, in Liverpool in the 1860s.
• Neither had I found Albert Brown, Maggie’s father.
• Nor had I found the marriage certificate of Albert Brown to Asor Zoar.
• I also needed to research more church records for other ancestors and for other clues.

A visit to the FRC brought me two incorrect births for a Charles Maloney and two incorrect Voller births.

I did source the birth certificate for Thomas Podavine dated 1 May 1845, son of William Podavine a wheelwright, and Harriott Podavine, formerly Saunders, born in Hambledon, Surrey. I also found the birth certificate of the daughter of Henry and Emily Pudvine who did not survive and interestingly had the mother listed as Emma Pudvine, formerly Waller, instead of Emily Pudvine, formerly Voller.

So much recorded information is incorrect either due to the illiteracy of the parents who were reliant on the competence of the registrar or because the registrar made errors. I also ordered the birth certificate of the unnamed son of Harriet and Frederick Pudvine who was born four days before his mother died, dated 1 June 1869.

I did not need these last two certificates but felt duty bound not to leave them out.

I tried and tried to find a marriage certificate for Frederick Pudvine to Maria Webber but failed again and again. Back at home I laid out all the information about Frederick and his family I had and established that Eliza and George would have been born prior to the death of Harriet, Frederick’s first wife. This meant that either Frederick was having an affair while his wife was ill, which seemed unlikely as he appeared to be a caring man having married Harriet who already had an illegitimate child, or Maria had been married previously, or that she had two illegitimate children. I went back to the FRC to search for a possible first marriage certificate for Maria Webber but could not find one, so I decided to look for George and Eliza under the surname of Webber which brought me the following:

• Henry George Webber born in Guildford on 1 October 1867, son of Maria Webber, name of father omitted;
• Eliza Webber born in Guildford Workhouse on 13 February 1869, son of Maria Webber, name of father omitted.

So Maria Webber had two children prior to her relationship with Frederick and although they lived together for many years producing children, so far there is no evidence of their marriage.

A search of deaths looking at various spellings of the name Pudwine brought me the following deaths:

• Jane Podevine, aged six weeks, dated 5 October 1846, daughter of William Podevine, a wheelwright, and Harriet Podevine, who was present at her death in Saint Mary’s Guildford, cause of death being convulsion;
• Thomas Podevine, aged 18 months, dated 20 November 1846, son of William Podevine, a wheelwright, and Harriet Podevine, who was present at his death in Saint Mary’s Guildford, cause of death being diarrhoea for 14 days.

As I had the birth certificate for the unnamed son of Frederick and Harriet born four days prior to Harriet’s death I ordered the death certificate. He died two days before Harriet on 2 June 1869. The certificate stated this child was one and a half days old, son of Frederick Pudvine, an agricultural labourer, who was also present at his death; the cause of death was given as premature birth at seven months.

I did source the death certificate for John Voller, father of Harriet who was the first wife of Frederick Pudvine: John Voller, dated 29 December 1879, aged 89 years, occupation labourer, cause of death decay of age, informant Master of Union Workhouse. From Census record information John Voller was only circa 82 at his death. Still, in the scheme of things he did well to reach that age.

I was beginning to become fractious by the fact I could not find any more information about William Podevin so I called the SoG again looking for inspiration and spoke to a very sympathetic lady who listened attentively to my problem. She suggested I could either search through their records or look for other clues by searching deaths of Podevin in the early years of the FRC indexes. I hadn’t thought of that! I might find a brother or sister or even father or mother of William. I also took the opportunity to mention my success in finding Maggie after the advice given and the subsequent visit to the SoG; she was amazed with my result, as my chances of finding her that way were extremely slim.

I found two Podevin deaths in Dover and decided to order these certificates. One of Frederick’s daughters died in this area so there could be a family link.

• Henry Podevin, dated 10 December 1840, aged 40 years, occupation Porter, cause of death consumption and present at death Susanna Laurance (sic);
• Mary Ann Podwin, dated 2 May 1841, aged seven years, daughter of William Podwin, a labourer, cause of death brain fever, present at death Margaret Fekens.

I felt I was clutching at straws again – only the Christian names held any relevance but the rest of the information was useless.