Much burrowing among the census returns seems finally to have got me back on track with identifying my gt-gt-grandfather James Haines, who I had tentatively identified living on the Narborough Road with a wife named Hannah in 1881. I wasn't happy with the identification though, since I had definitely identified James' widowed mother-in-law, Elizabeth Harrison, who was lodging my gt-grandfather William Haines in 1881, and Hannah was too old to be Elizabeth's daughter.
Deciding on a different approach, I looked for Elizabeth in the 1871 census, and found her with her husband John and granddaughter Ann Haines, who I had found mentioned on one of the notes left by my Mum, but had not yet found documented elsewhere. Great!! But better was to come, as living next door was James Haines, widower, and his son Willie. On the same page is a William Harrison, who may be John's brother - Huncote families obviously stayed close. This gave me a short timeframe to look for female Haines deaths in the Blaby district and I turned up the death of Matilda Haines in 1869. This made it easy to find marriage index entries for James Haines and Matilda Harrison in 1858 and then to find the couple in the 1861 census with a 3 year old son George who appears to have died later the same year.
Another of these long forgotten family tragedies which will have meant so much to the individuals involved - James and his young wife Matilda (she seems to have been about 25 years younger than him) lost their oldest son and then had another son and a daughter, only for Matilda herself to die, leaving two young children. These untimely deaths do interest me and I shall try to remember to get the death certificates when I'm feeling extravagant and try to understand a little more of what happened. James himself appears to have died in 1879.
I've sent for James and Matilda's marriage certificate, so hopefully I will finally fix James' age and find out the names of his parents.
