Lovelocks by and in Adoption |
There is a small number of people in the world who were not born with the name Lovelock, or did not marry a Lovelock, but for one reason or another at some time rejoiced in the name. One of the purposes of this page is to document what we know about at least some of the individuals concerned, as otherwise they might remain as puzzling personages to be found somewhere in the masses of available data but not necessarily linked to one of our family trees.
Equally there are some people registered as Lovelocks at their births who were for one reason or another adopted and thus may sometimes seem to disappear from the records, and they too may be included in the brief histories below.
Adoption and fostering on an informal basis, which often resulted in children being recorded in official documentation with their adoptive or foster parents' surname, has probably existed since time immemorial, but it was not until the Legitimacy Act of 1926 was passed that adoption became legally recognised in England and Wales. Similar provisions covered Northern Ireland in 1929 and Scotland in 1930. By the end of the 1920s there was a legal process in each of the Australian States, and in most of the Canadian Provinces. Formal procedures began in the USA in 1851 when Massachusetts enacted a State Law, and New Zealand was the first country in what was then the British Empire to legalize adoption in 1881.
1. The Polish Connection
The 1950 US Census records Alexander C Lovelock living in Houston, Texas. He was a Professional Wrestler by occupation, and was accompanied by his wife Rosemary B and daughter Gerre A. He was 35 years old, and had been born in Canada according to the Census entry.
Our records of births in Canada do not include an Alexander C, and he does not appear under that name in either of our transcriptions of 1921 and 1931 Canada Census entries. He was thus a total mystery man ..... until some information appeared in a Public Member's Tree at Ancestry.co.uk. It seems that his parents were Polish and are named as William Nowosielski and Anna Danylszyn. His father arrived in Canada in 1904 according to the 1921 Census, which also records a 2 year old Alex who had been born in Ontario. In 1931 Alex was again recorded as Alex Nowosielski, a 14 years old student and born in Ontario, probably in Windsor where the family, as in 1921, were resident.
At some point Alex's father adopted the surname of Newman and when Alex married Rosemary Bartolomea Insirillo on 28 February 1941 he was recorded on the authorisation of marriage for Harris County, Texas as Alex Newman Lovelock. By 1949 he had become a Wrestler as evidenced by a Border Crossing Record completed when he crossed from Canada into Detroit, USA. The document names him as Alexander Charles Newman 'Alias AL LOVELOCK', so it would appear that he had adopted Lovelock as a professional name. His wife was named as Rose Mary Newman.
The couple divorced in 1951, but not before they had produced their daughter Gerre Ann on 3 February 1944. Alexander married Amy Ruth Eatherly on 23 November 1951, again fathering one daughter. He died on 28 August 1984 at the age of 68 according to the photograph of his grave marker on the 'Find a Grave' Web Site in Paris, Texas, which records him as Alexander Charles Lovelock. Gerre Ann married 4 times and divorced all 4 husbands, before dying on 5 December 2010. Alexander's second wife is recorded on her grave marker, also in Paris, Texas, as Aimee Ruth Eatherly Lovelock, and she died on 25 October 1988 at the age of 76. His first wife remarried in 1952 being recorded at that marriage as Rosemary Lovelock.
2. A double helping of Grace
Sarah Ann Grace was baptised at Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, on 28 August 1859. At the comparatively late age of 31 she married George Lovelock on 14 September 1890 in Little Bedwyn, also in Wiltshire. She and George eventually had four children. The 1891 Census, taken on 5 April, records George and Sarah Ann (recorded as just Ann) with their daughter Elsie Lovelocke living with George's widowed father James. Elsie was one year old so the mathematics reveals that she was born before George and Sarah Ann married, and indeed she was registered at birth as Elsie Grace. She was recorded again as Elsie Lovelock in the 1911 Census, and as Elsie Grace Lovelock when she married Frederick Montague Lee on 3 July 1909.
But Elsie was not alone in the preservation of her mother's maiden name. She had an older brother named Henry James. He was born on 24 November 1886 and baptised at Great Bedwyn as Henry James Grace, the son of Sarah Ann Grace 'a Single Woman', on 8 November 1887. He seems not to have been recorded in the 1891 Census, but in 1901 he was with George and Sarah Ann (named this time as just Sarah) in Alton Priors in Wiltshire, a 14-year-old Plough Boy recorded as Henry Grace Lovelock. In 1911 the family had moved to Wilcot near Pewsey, still in Wiltshire, and this time he was recorded by George as a Son named Henry James Grace Lovelock. When he married Fanny Wiltshire later that year the GRO Registration records him as Henry J G Lovelock. However, that seems to be the last commitment of Henry to the Lovelock epithet. He and Fanny had three children, all of their births were registered with the surname Grace, and when he died in 1873 his death was registered in the name of Henry James Grace.
3. A boy named Boylett - but not for long
The birth of William Boylett was registered in the January-March quarter of 1861, the son of Susannah Boylett. By the time of the 1861 Census - 7 April - Susannah was living with a James Lovelock as man and wife, although as far as the GRO records are concerned there is no evidence that they ever married. Be those facts as they may, William was recorded in that Census as James' stepson, aged 1. But by the time of the 1871 Census he went by the name of William Lovelock, and was recorded then and in 1881 as the son of James. He went by that name at his marriage in late 1881, in every subsequent Census, and was registered in that name at his death in 1933.
4. Kay-Lovelock-Kay
Beatrice Avena Kay was born in Accrington, Lancashire on 14 June 1912. However, in the 1921 Census she was recorded as Beatrice Avena Lovelock, a granddaughter of Mary Annie Elizabeth Lovelock (nee King) from the Portsmouth Tree. The way that Mary had completed the Census Return suggests that Beatrice was considered to be the, presumably adopted, daughter of Reginald Russell Lovelock and Meda Ede. She was recorded as Betty A Lovelock in the 1939 Register, and as Betty Avena Lovelock when she applied to join the Land Army, but as Beatrice A Kay when she married a Michael Galligan in Oct-Dec 1948, so she may not have been adopted after all. She died in 1997.
5. The other way about
Olive Annie May Lovelock was born in Devizes, Wiltshire on 28 August 1910. In the 1911 Census she was recorded as a 7 month old child living with Francis Offer and his wife Sarah Ann (nee White). By 1921 Francis had died but Olive was still living with Sarah Ann. Whoever completed the Return, and the handwriting is clearly not Sarah Ann's, recorded Olive as an 'adopted child', but gave her name as Olive Annie May Lovelock. Olive married Daniel Carter in 1935, the GRO entry recording her as Olive A M Lovelock, so it seems that she never went by the name of Offer. She died in 1981.
6. And her real name is ...?
Living in Crundall, Kent in 1901 with the family of Frank and Charlotte Boulding was 14-year-old Emma Lovelock, born in Bethersden in Kent. The Enumerator recorded her relation to the head of the household as 'adopted child'. Her birth was recorded in the West Ashford Registration District in 1887, but with no mother's maiden name quoted. There is no trace of such an Emma Lovelock in the 1891 Census, but there is an interesting family living at St Mary's in Kent. The family concerned is that of Henry and Eliza Boulding, and the second-youngest of their 8 children is their 4-year-old daughter Emma Boulding, apparently born in St Mary's. However, there is no trace of an Emma Boulding's birth in the GRO records.
Henry Boulding was born in Hurst, Kent in about 1852 and Frank in Hurst in about 1855, although there does not seem to be any direct evidence online that they were related. In 1911 Henry and Eliza claimed to have had 10 children, who were all still alive. Frank and Charlotte claimed to have had 8 children, of whom 1 had died, but neither household included an Emma. The GRO records do not contain the death registration of either an Emma Lovelock or Emma Boulding of the right age, nor is there any record of a marriage.
7. Adopted, but never a Lovelock
In 1911 the family of George Edward Lovelock and his wife Maud (nee Cannings) in Littlehampton, Sussex included 4-year-old Dorothy Slack as an 'Adopted Child', born in Poole, Dorset. There is no mother's maiden name recorded in Dorothy's birth registration, but there does not seem to be any connection between the Lovelock or Cannings families and any lady by the name of Slack. It may be that Dorothy was placed with George Edward and Maud by some sort of adoption agency, which would of course have been unofficial at the time. However Dorothy came to be with Mr and Mrs Lovelock it would seem that the placement was not a success. In 1921 Dorothy was with Henry and Elizabeth Kerry in Mapperley, Nottinghamshire, still recorded as Dorothy Slack, and furthermore as an 'Adopted Daughter'.
A similar example is that of Violet Meads. She was born in Oxford in 1896, the birth registration containing no mother's maiden name. In 1901 she was recorded in Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire as the 'adpt daur' of George Lovelock and his wife Sarah (nee Allen). Violet was still living with George and Sarah in 1911, but whoever completed the Census Return, and it was clearly not George, did not indicate any relationship between Violet and George. Violet never married or changed her surname, and died in the Brighton Residential District in 1974.
8. Formal or informal?
Gwendolen Nellie Fosbury was born in Reading, Berkshire on 15 February 1908, the daughter of Nellie Frances Elsie Fosbury. In the 1911 Census she was recorded as the niece of William James and Rosina Fisher, living in Chertsey, Surrey. Her mother married Ernest Lovelock on 17 June 1911 and in 1921 the three of them were living in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, with Gwendolen recorded as 'Daughter' with the surname Lovelock. Gwendoline died in 1933, the death being registered in the name of Gwendoline N Lovelock. Whether there was a formal adoption by Ernest, or whether Gwendolen herself used the name of Lovelock we are unable to say.