As a genealogist, I get excited when encountering the "black sheep" of the families I'm working on. The black sheep stories usually go one of two ways. They disappear, never to be found again or they produce a variety of records that are very unflattering to say the least.
Yesterday, while working on a census search for Abel Church of Oxfordshire County, England, I noted that in 1861 the census shows a granddaughter aged 5, named Emily Church, who was living with Abel and his wife Mary, along with Abel's daughters Alice and Jemima.
My first thought was to wonder who Emily belongs to. It was either one of the three sons or a daughter, born out of wedlock to one of the daughters. And why was she living with her grandparents?
I went to Ancestry.com and started searching for Emily. I knew she was born about 1856 and the census listed her birth place as Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire County. I found the birth record in the index. But of course the index didn't tell me anything. I found Emily living with her grandmother Mary Church in 1871.
So as the next step, I decided to look at Ancestry family trees to see if anyone else had Emily in their tree and could provide me with some direction as to who her parents were. The first entry that came up was an odd one - it was marked private so I couldn't dig into it - but it showed her birthdate as 1856 in Oxfordshire. But the title of the tree was what really grabbed me. It was unusual. It said "LONDON - Emily Church Murder - Final."
I thought "wow, Emily Church was murdered. I wonder who murdered her and what that's all about." So I went to Findmypast.co.uk and did a search in their newspapers for Emily Church. I came up with a lot of newspaper articles about Emily Church. And she wasn't murdered. She was the murderer. I skimmed through a couple of the articles (they were from papers all over the UK.) And they all talked about Emily Church, the young woman who murdered her little girl. There was still no indication that this was my Emily Church.
I went back to Ancestry to see if I could find Emily Church in the 1881 census and lo and behold, there she was. Emily Church born about 1853 in Henley, Oxfordshire - listed as a prisoner in Surrey County. So it was looking more likely that this was the right Emily.
I next did a Google Search for Emily Church + murder + england. I found a short mention in a book called Certain Other Countries where it said that Emily was tried in 1876 for murdering her two-year old illegitmate daughter. It mentioned the overwhelming sympathy people felt for this young woman who was poor and overwhelmed.
I kept looking and came across a great site http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/. This site has records of criminal cases from 1647-1913 that were tried at Old Bailey in London. I found the actual court records including testimony of the trial. And surprisingly enough there were a lot of genealogy gems in the court records.
First there was the testimony of Jemima Bull. She gave her relationship as aunt and stated that Emily was her sister's daughter. (Unfortunately she didn't say which sister.) I know that Jemima Bull was originally Jemima Church who was listed in the 1861 census that original took me down this path. She mentioned that her mother (this would be Mary Church) had been asked to get her grandaughter out of the Union - which I assume was the union workhouse - and that she (Jemima) had been asked to take in Emily and her child - which she did. However she was not getting any money for housing Emily and her child. The rest of the testimony was from various people who she lived with or who saw who with the child before it died.
The last pieces of testimony was from the policeman who stated that when they asked Emily about the child she replied "I never had a b---- kid." I am assuming that the missing word is basterd which confirms, again that Caroline Beatrice Church, the murdered child in question was born out of wedlock.
The last interesting piece of information was that when arrested, Emily gave her name as Sarah Hicks. Now that name is interesting from a couple of points. One of Abel's daughters was named Sarah. I don't think that's Emily's mother however as Sarah had been married in 1851 - unless she had a daughter outside her marriage. And Hicks, I believe, is Mary Church's maiden name.
In the end, Emily Church was found guilty of murdering her daughter. The jury strongly recommended mercy because of the "desperate poverty-stricken condition in which she was placed; and secondly for her youth." The judge imposed the death penalty which was commuted to a life sentence later on.
I've not been able to figure out what happened to Emily after 1881. Reading the trial transcript also left me wondering about the rest of the family and how they survived this ordeal. There were a couple of less than complimentary remarks made about Jemima Bull and Emily apparently stated at one point "I will make my aunt remember this." Jemima almost certainly would have felt a sense of guilt over the death of this little girl that she took care of for a short while. But all the people involved were fairly poor and one can surely understand that adding two people to a household without additional income would be a struggle.
The moral of this tale is that you can find genealogy gems in most any document so be sure to read through everything carefully. And don't be afraid to uncover the black sheep of the family. They add wonderful color to your family tree.
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