William Grenfell born 18745 Cornwall England 342

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Many thanks Di.

I have the following firm facts :

-William's marriage certificate which lists his marriage to Jane Osborne on 17-8-1895. I've put the original up here : William is aged 21 on the 17-8-1895 and is a resident of Carnyorth, St Just Cornwall. His father was also called William (now deceased) and was also a Tin Miner

-Andrew Grenfell's (my gfather) 1920 marriage certificate which gives his father as William Grenfell (deceased) a Tin Miner. At the time of his marriage Andrew is a resident of Carnyforth, St Just.

-Records from Calumet, Michigan, USA which list William, Jane, Andrew and Wesley Grenfell. Jane and Wesley died in Michigan and I know from relatives thatWilliam brough the young Andrew back to Cornwall to be raised by his maternal grandmother (Mary Osborne nee Stevens). You can see these records here :-

Andrew:

Wesley:

I also understand from relatives that Andrew never saw his father (William) again. It is believed that William returned to the US and I recently obtained a copy of an advertisement placed by Andrew in a Calumet mining magazine - you can see it here Carnyorth has been mistranscribed as Carinporth (there is no such place).

From all of this I am reasonably certain that William Grenfell was born and raised in Carnyorth in 1873-74 (sorry I got it wrong in the subject line) and was a Tin Miner there as an adult. There is no evidence of any middle names and on this basis I'm pretty sure he is the William Grenfell listed in the July-Sept quarter 1873 of the English Births Index - there really aren't that many to chose from. I'm in the process of obtaining his BC which should give me some more info.

The thing is, I can find no matching record of William in the UK or US censuses for 1880-1 1890-1 - those that come close can be accounted for in the bmd indexes. There are a small number of Grenfells in Carnyorth in 1881 but none of them look to be missing a child born 1873-4. I note however that some of the younger Carnyorth Grenfells are born in Colorado USA. It seems that the late 1800s saw severe unemployment amongst Cornish Tin and Copper miners forcing many to emigrate or find work abroad. I know that William himself went to Copper Country Michigan in 1899 (explaining why I could never find him in the UK 1901 census) and I have a theory that his parents (William and ??) also went abroad sometime in the period 1875-1895. I've looked in the US censuses for that period and I'm now considering the possibilty that the family spent this time in Australia - which I gather was also a popular destination for tin-copper miners at this time.

Any help in tracing William would be very welcome. I'm particularly keen to find out if William ever remarried and had more children.

Thanks again Des