Today’s photo is one I picked up from TradeMe last year, it’s somewhat the worse for wear unfortunately, but if she was my ancestor I’d still love to have the photo if I didn’t already know what she looked like, wouldn’t you? I wondered why it had turned up in NZ when I realised the person selling it had said it came from the UK, she didn’t say why.
After I had checked FreeBMD I groaned inwardly when I saw there were a total of 22 people with that name whose births were registered in England between 1845 & 1907! However, seeing that the photo was taken in Maidstone (Kent) I searched again just in Kent and luckily there was only one:-
Births Dec 1870
Fletcher Ada Mary N. Aylesford 2a 403
There was also only one marriage between an Ada Mary Fletcher and someone named Watson and it was in Kent:-
Marriages Mar 1903
Fletcher Ada Mary Malling 2a 937
Watson Ernest William Malling 2a 937
In the photo Ada is wearing what looks like a sort of nurses uniform and when I found Ada in the 1891 census she was listed as a ‘housemaid domestic’ servant which didn’t quite fit until I saw she was living in the same house as two ‘registered General Medical Practitioners’, so perhaps she was their assistant around ‘The Surgery’ (the name of the house).
Ada Mary was born in Cobham, Kent in 1870 and baptised at Wrotham on 18 Dec 1870, daughter of Frederick & Lydia Fletcher of Sole St in Cobham. Frederick was a wheelwright & carpenter born in Ash next Ridley who married Lydia Bennett from Wrotham in 1870, they had seven children including Ada.
Ada & Ernest Watson had four children, one daughter Florence Elizabeth 1903-1983, and three sons – Ernest Robert 1905-1985, Charles Henry 1908-1976 and Harold Theodore 1912-1994.
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If anyone knows anything about or is connected to the FLETCHER or WATSON families please do contact me, I would love to pass the photo onto a family member, even a distant one. Contact by email is preferable but if you are going to leave a comment please don’t forget to include your email address.
Dawn Scotting
pandora[at]kc.net.nz
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