Page 74 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

Oates
Son
3
Shelf, Yorkshire
Susey A
Daughter
1
Shelf, Yorkshire
John Soothill (1822-1911) and Mary Briggs (1823-?) were both born in Shelf, Yorkshire and, although the date of their marriage is not known, they certainly went on to have a large family of five children – two boys and three girls who were all born in Shelf. They were living in Commercial Road, Dewsbury, at the time of the 1861 census. At this point nothing is known of their forebears, but is there perhaps a connection with the other family living in Dewsbury? Samuel, aged 28 – thus, ten years younger than John – with his 25-year-old wife, Harriet, and their young family of Thomas aged three and Isabella aged one, are also living in Commercial Road, Dewsbury, so it seems likely that there may well be some link. Curiously, both families have a young daughter named Isabella – Samuel’s is aged one year and John’s is aged six years – but this does not help in proving a relationship!
Unsurprisingly, not much is known about the three girls – Nancy Elizabeth (1852-1876), Isabella (1855-?), and Susey A. (1860-?). However, Isabella is known to have married a man named Talbot in Dewsbury in 1875, but she also seems to have given birth to Mary Ethel Soothill in about 1884, so apparently using her maiden name of Soothill suggests that this was an illegitimate birth.
The two eldest boys, Thomas and Oates, were born in Shelf in Yorkshire, while Walter was born in Dewsbury which is also in Yorkshire. All the three boys are known to have married. The oldest, Thomas (1949-1879) was married in Barnsley in 1873, but there is no evidence of any offspring. Oates (1857-?) certainly went to the U.S.A. at some point and married Mary Ann Smith, but this marriage seems to have taken place in England. Presumably this is the marriage which took place in Ashton in 1880. Anyway, Mary Smith seems to be from the United States. They had Martha
70