Saturday, April 1, 2017

A little side story about one of the Boam family descendants- Harriet Boam

I havent done a page on this as this is a side branch of my tree rather than a direct line ( I may do some pages on side branches if I get time though)  but in the course of the research on the Boams I discovered this sad little story of the life of  my 3rd cousin 3x removed Harriet Boam

Harriet Boam was born in 1871 in Winster to John Boam and Elizabeth ( Bessie) Heathcote.
To understand how I am related to Harriet we need to go back a couple more generations.
Harriets father John Boam was the son of a previous John Boam (1817-1889) who was the son of James Boam(1790-1856) James was the brother of Thomas Boam ( 1803-1874) who was my 4x great grandfather.

Anyway back to Harriet.
 In 1891 aged about 19 she married James Greatorex also of Winster. They had 3 children, Maud, Bessie and Donald Greatorex.
Sadly in 1903 James Greatorex died .
In 1904 Harriet married James brother Josiah Greatorex. ( note that it  wasnt actually allowed under law to marry your brother or sister in law  however it happened quite frequently)
Tragically though, Harriet would become a widow for the second time a year later in 1905 when Josiah died .
Probates for both Greatorex brothers show Harriet as the beneficiary.


Harriet then went on to marry George William Hadfield in 1910 and they had a baby, Bertha in 1911 just before the 1911 census, in fact Bertha is listed as Baby in the census - she had not even been named yet.
George, like Josiah and James before him was a Lead miner.

Just 5 years later in 1916 tragedy would strike again and Harriet was widowed for a third time.


I found the death of Harriet Hadfield in 1944 in Winster, however probate gave details of her husband  (still living) as Arthur Hadfield !!



Ive yet to determine the relationship between Arthur and George - they weren't brothers- but im sure there must have been some connection!

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