8 Apr 2021
I received an email from LO (Rebecca Chambers’ great-great granddaughter) yesterday and some messages on Ancestry.
She included pictures of the family bible that we had though Billy Bell had burned! I sent a copy to Jeff but haven’t heard back. He is recovering from Covid at the moment.
She also included a scan of the original postcard of this photo that I have a copy of, but also the back of it which includes names:
LO says the names read “left to right Louise Hilda Eileen not sure if its Rebecca or Hettie on the end.”
Looking closely at the scan I think the left side reads:
Auntie Loui Auntie Nellie [….] Eileen [….] Hilda
and the right reads:
Left to right Auntie Louie Auntie Hilda Auntie Eileen Auntie […]
Jeff’s research diary has an entry for 14th May 1988 where he shows this picture to Nel. He says The women are Louis, Hilda, Eileen and Helena and she said it was taken on Louis’s wedding day 9 Nov 1935 where Nel was a bridesmaid.
Looking back at the diaries I was reminded that I hadn’t managed to find anything about the Picketts. George Henry Chambers’ sister Helen married a Harry or Henry Pickett. Nel told us that they spelled the name Piquet or Piquette. I recently searched for their marrige and found nothing. I tried again today and found it under the name Pickett
Marriage at the church of St John the Evangelist, Charlotte Street, Camden on 24th March 1894 between Henry Martin Pickett, bachelor aged 26 of 11 Pitt Street, father James Pickett, a labourer and Ellen Chambers, spinster aged 23 of 26 Tottenham Court Road, father George Chambers (deceased), a labourer. The witnesses were Henry Piquet and Kate Baldwin.
Amusingly the groom spells his name Pickett while the witness spells his Piquet. Were they related and if so, why did they spell their names differently? Was it an affectation by some parts of the Pickett family?
That addition was enough for me to identify other trees on Ancestry that include Henry and Ellen. I found that they had seven children between 1895 and 1910 and that Henry died in 1922
