KATHERINE COBB is a member of AGRA. She writes about illegitimacy on page 31
RUTH MACDONALD is deputy director at the Salvation Army International Heritage Centre
JAYNE SHRTMPTON is a professional dress historian and portrait specialist
PHIL TOMASELLI is a military family history expert and author
PETER TOWEY is vice-president of the Anglo-German Family History Society
Why might my ancestor's birth location have been the Southern Ocean?
QMy great grandparents are William Rowley (born 1784, Birmingham) and Eleanor (born cl800). I cannot find a marriage for them, but in the census, their son Joseph was recorded as being born cl817 “A Broad in the Southern Ocean”. I've found a baptism for Joseph in St Peter's Church, Liverpool, on 27 September 1817 his father was recorded as a blacksmith. Would blacksmiths go to sea in the 1800s and why was Eleanor in the Southern Ocean when she gave birth? Diane Hudson
Alt's unlikely that William would have gone to sea as a blacksmith in 1817. Other skilled non-seamen had important roles on ships at this time, especially carpenters, but not blacksmiths.
The most likely explanation is that William and Eleanor met abroad and
