William James Sole b. September 23, 1877

Hi all,

This gentleman was my gr-grandfather. He was sent to Canada in 1888 -
Age: 10
***: M
Year of arrival: 1888
Ship: SS Pomeranian
Port of departure: Liverpool
Departure Date: 29 Mar 1888
Port of arrival: Halifax, NS
Arrival Date: 8 Apr 1888
Party: Miss Macpherson's
Destination: Stratford, Ont.
Comments: This party of 92 males from Miss Macpherson to Stratford, Ontario was found in RG17, Vol. 589, Docket 66513 of the General Correspondence Series. While the ship's manifest mentioned a party of children, no children were identified [microfilm C-4513].

Prior to this he was at the Carter Home in Clapham for approximately 2 years and for a short time previous to this was in France with his mother. I have been unable to find much more other than his father was James Sole and his mother was alive in 1888. Am hoping someone may have some additional info.

Cindy Sileo
Amherst, New York, USA

All we currently know about your gr-grandfather William James SOLE is his birthdate and the place of registration which was Horsham in the county of Sussex.

We have records of one large Sussex family and a few smaller ones, but with such limited data we have been unable to connect him with any of our SOLE families.

You state that his father was James SOLE; did you find this from a copy of his birth certificate? If not, I suggest your next action should be to obtain a copy of the certificate from the ONS in London, web reference > www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/< and the reference is >1877-DEC HORSHAM 2b-312<. Alternatively the Society will obtain it for you. The cost would be £8 which you could pay through Pay Pal via our web site.

The certificate should contain his father's and mother's name from which we would have a better chance of linking William to one of our trees.

Bob Sheldon
Name co-ordinator.

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your reply. I was able to find the info for ordering birth certificates in an earlier posting you had online so I already have it on order. Thank you for posting that information :)

As you can see, William listed his father on his marriage registration but unfortunately he did not list his mother-

Ontario Marriage Registration # 12436-01 William James SOLE, 24, railroad employee, England, Waterford, s/o James SOLE & blank, married Rose Ellen LA ROSE, 24, Ontario, Waterford, d/o William LAROSE & Mary BYE, witn: Clara BERTRAM & Herbert LAROSE, both of Waterford, 17 April 1901 at Waterford

Hopefully the birth registration will yield some answers,

Cindy

Hi Bob,
Me again, just received the copy of William's birth registration which yielded a surprise and many additional questions. Seems on his birth registration no father is listed at all. In your Sussex branches of the Sole family do you have an Ann or Annie ? Seems she was William's mother. On the birth registration filed on 20 Oct 1877, her residence is listed as 1 Station Road, Horsham, occupation listed as domestic servant cook. Birthplace for William James Sole was first listed as 12 Bighton/Brighton? Road, Horsham, then crossed off and 1 Station Road listed so am not sure if one of those was her parents and one employer or both had been employer residences. Anyone in the group familiar with Horsham ? Perhaps they may be able to shed some light on this one. Am wondering if James was the first name of Annie's father or the natural father or neither, however William does have this for his middle name and a son & grandson were given the first name of James so it must have had some significance to William. Apreciate any further information you might find now that we have his mothers name.

Best Regards,
Cindy

Hi Cindy

As no father's name was given on his birth certificate, we have to assume that William James was illegitimate. You may be right that his father was James but it is unlikely that we shall ever know this for sure.

I have looked through our records for Ann or Annie SOLE who might have been his mother and the only one that might fit is one who was born in 1856 in Lurgashall in Sussex which is just under 20 miles west from Horsham. She was shown as a 15 year old servant in Lurgashall in the 1871 census, but thereafter we have lost track of her. It was not uncommon for servant girls to move around for work, but it is just speculation that she was the mother of William James.

I expect you have visited >http://www.goldonian.org/photos/photo_archive_homes/pages/clapham_home.htm< where there is a photo of the Carter Home in Clapham with very brief information. It was presumably for orphan children and subsequently taken over by Dr Barnardo's.

So I regret that we are not able to help further with your search for William's family, but thank you for telling us what happened after he reached Canada.

Bob Sheldon.