Alice Mary Wales born c 1857 Newington, Surrey

Alice Mary is proving elusive. She was the wife of James Thomas Stocking who was born in Southwark on 15 June 1853. They married in St John's Church, Waterloo, Lambeth on Sunday November 29th, 1874 and were my paternal great-great grandparents. A distant relative contacted via GenesReunited provided a wonderful photo of James and Alice and several of their (reportedly 21) children, their spouses and offspring taken around 1906. James died in Catford in 1920.

Alice appears in the census indexes online in 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 (a full house!). Her reported birth dates vary slightly (1858/9 in the 1861 index, 1864 in the 1871 census (where her birthplace is given as Walworth), 1857 in the 1881 index, 1858 in the 1891 and 1901 images). The certificate for an Alice Mary Wales born in Islington in 1857 (1b 169) doesn't seem likely given that there is no father named and the mother is not Catherine. Aaron Wales and his wife Catherine are shown as Alice's parents in the 1861 and 1871 censuses (Aaron also named as father on Alice's marriage certificate). He married Catherine Alice Stoney in 1849.

So I have to keep looking somewhere around the 1850-1860 era for the birth of an Alice Mary Wales, somewhere in London!

Update: January 2008.

Another contact from MyRoots who has connections with the WALES line, suggests that Alice Mary was born on 25 August 1857 and baptised on 13 September 1857. Unfortunately no source information is given, and I still have not found a likely birth registration in the indexes.  Unless another contact has the information, I will have to wait until I can search the many London parish records which might at least give her baptism detail.