Posted: 18 Sep 2013 | Author: Sue Adams | Filed under: Analysis, Genealogy resources, Land and property, Research strategy, Sue's family research | Tags: 50 Marriage Mondays, Adams, Ashted, back-to-back houses, Barton, Duddeston, redevelopment, Trade directory |
On first examination it would be easy to assume that the subjects of this entry in the 50 Marriage Mondays series had met through being neighbours, possibly from childhood.

Marriage Certificate – Thomas Adams & Mary Ann Barton
Bride: Mary Ann Barton, of 1 Bk 89 Heneage str
Groom: Thomas Adams, of 2 Bk 89 Heneage str
Date: 29 March 1902
Location: St James Church, Ashted, Birmingham
Only a fragment of Heneage Street exists today, and none of the buildings along the street survive. The parish of Ashted lay within the Duddeston and Nechells redevelopment area, first proposed in 1937 due to the unsanitary state of the housing. Redevelopment commenced after World War II when the area had suffered bomb damage due to its proximity to industrial targets, including St James church, which was demolished around 1956.
So, can we locate the residences of Thomas and Mary Ann? A clue lies in the addresses. The abbreviation ‘Bk’ stands for back, indicating the houses 1 and 2 were situated behind the house numbered 89 that fronted onto Heneage Street. Behind the houses that lined the streets there were courts or yards serving several 2 or 3 story Back-to-Back or Tunnel-Back houses accessed by an alley or passage. Many such houses on Heneage Street had only 3 rooms. The houses of each courtyard shared outdoor toilet facilities and water pump. Birmingham Lives, The Carl Chinn Archive includes photographs of this type of housing, like Court 15 in nearby Adams Street.
The 1890 1:2,500 scale Ordnance Survey map shows Heneage Street stretched from Woodcock Street in the west to Great Francis Street in the east. It also shows the confusing jumble of courts. A larger scale map, (available at old-maps.co.uk, coordinates 408330, 287837) the 1: 500 Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Birmingham, dated 1887-1889, shows individual houses, but does not give house numbers. However, the 1903 street directory[1] makes it clear that the house numbers ran from 1 to ca. 150 along the south side starting at the Woodcock street end, and from 151 upwards along the north side starting at Great Francis Street. So number 89 was on the south side between Henry Street and Willis Street:
South side Heneage street
……… here is Henry st ………
Nicholls Harry, coal dealer
75 Smith Joseph, confectioner
81 Hayes Mrs. Elizh. shopkr
89 Heybeard Mrs. Dora, pawn-broker
90 Pearson Hy. painter & glazier
91 Hurst Mrs. Mary Ann, haberdasher
93 Avery Rowland G. grocer
97 { Gill Herbt. Edwd. chemist TOWN SUB-POST, M. O.O. & S. B
……… here is Willis st ………
Counting back from 97, the post office (marked in green) on the corner of Heneage and Willis streets, 89 is a house (marked in yellow) with a passage on both sides leading to courts 15 and 16 (marked in blue). Each court contained 3 back-to-back houses (marked in red).

Back-to-back houses behind 89 Heneage Street
The street directory does not list everyone who lived in the street, but only those prepared to pay for an entry, such as businesses. To answer the question of whether Thomas and Mary Ann met as neighbours, I turned to the 1901 census, taken a year before their marriage.
Neither Mary Ann nor Thomas lived in Heneage Street in 1901. Pawn broker Dora Heybeard is enumerated at no 89 and the Bagliss, Tebbett and Browning families are listed at 1, 2 and 3 houses in court 16. Court 15 is not identified in the address column, so I am not sure which census entries relate to those houses.
The most likely candidate on the 1901 for Mary Ann Barton, is a 26 year old pen grinder, enumerated as a boarder with the Kidner family at Court 23 house 1, Clifton Road, Aston. The address again gives the clue that the house was a back-to-back. I have not identified Thomas Adams on the census because there are several possible candidates. Both Mary Ann and Thomas had moved more than once prior to 1901 with their parents, but apparently left home by 1901. In 1901, Mary Ann’s parents and Thomas’ parents lived at 85 Adams Street, Aston and 5 Guthrie Street, Aston Manor respectively.
Year |
Mary Ann Barton’s address |
Thomas Adams’ address |
1871 |
N/A |
2 bk of 27 & 28, Barr Street, St Martin |
1875 |
35 Brewery Street, Duddeston |
N/A |
1881 |
60 Richard Street, Aston |
13 Upper Hockley Street, Upper Hockley Street, Birmingham All Saints |
1891 |
Court 2 House 4, Dartmouth Street, Aston |
Upper Hockley Street, Birmingham All Saints |
1901 |
Court 23 house 1, Clifton Road, Aston |
Not found |
It is clear that the Barton and Adams families moved around the poorer parts of Birmingham close to the city centre. They may have been even more mobile than suggested by the census records presented here. Several addresses indicate back-to-back houses. Investigating the area has helped me understand my great grandparent’s humble origins.
© Sue Adams 2013
[1] “UK, Midlands and Various UK Trade Directories, 1770-1941”, Birmingham, 1903 Kelly’s Directory of Birmingham, image nos 141-142. digital image. Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk : accessed 18 September 2013)
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Posted: 20 Aug 2013 | Author: Sue Adams | Filed under: Genealogy software and data, Photo software, Sue's family research | Tags: 50 Marriage Mondays, Adams, Birmingham, Canning, face recognition, family history, identity, metadata, Ward End |
When I first got my hands on this photograph it had no helpful annotation on the back to tell me who the people were. The photo is part of my grandmother’s collection, so I could recognise her and my grandfather. As they died many years ago, I could not ask them to identify the other people. Three people of the next generation, the baby in his mother’s arms, the toddler on her grandmother’s knee and the child bridesmaid are still alive and all recognise the groom as a favourite: Uncle Albert.

The marriage certificate provides the date, location and names three people present at the wedding in addition to the couple:
Bride: Margaret Canning
Groom: Albert Adams
Date: 12 April 1941
Location: St Margaret’s Church, Ward End, Birmingham
Father of Bride: Arthur Solomon Canning
Father of Groom: Thomas Henry Adams (deceased)
Witnesses: A S Canning, J Adams
Although some of the people in this picture have been identified, others have not. First, I want to do the electronic equivalent of writing on the back, and second, I want to share the photo with relatives and let them add to the annotation.
Annotating Digital Images – Metadata
It is important that my annotations are embedded in the image file and that they are not lost when the file is copied or edited. Two commonly used file types that support embedded text are jpeg and tiff, which also support information like camera settings, date and time of creation, and copyright. Rather than describe the positions of people, which can get cumbersome, I want to point to a face and label it with the person’s name.
Digital cameras, social media and image processing software now commonly boast ‘face recognition’ capabilities. Two processes are often conflated when people talk about face recognition. The first is the ability to determine that a face is part of the picture, rather than some other object with similar dimensions (e.g. a ball, balloon). This problem has been solved and successfully implemented in many cameras and software, which identify the part of the picture containing a face and highlight the region in a rectangle.
The second problem, the ability to compare two faces and determine whether the same person is depicted, is much more complex and difficult. Automatic comparison and identification requires multiple images to train the software to recognise a person. The training is done by a person. People are talented at recognising other people, computers aren’t.
All the embedded information, the file’s metadata, is the needed for the person labelling functions I want to work.
Picasa and Photoshop Elements – Metadata compatibility
Two image processing programs, Picasa 3.9 (free) and Photoshop Elements 8 (came bundled with some hardware) installed on my computer, are both capable of identifying face regions and labelling them. However, faces labelled in one program are not recognised by the other.

Screen shots of face tagging in Picasa (top) and Photoshop Elements (bottom)
There are many ways labels, tags and definition of face regions can be implemented by software, so programs have developed a variety of different solutions. Incompatibility between programs is a consequence. Consumer dissatisfaction prompted a consortium of digital media companies, The Metadata Working Group, to publish technical guidelines in November 2010, aimed at overcoming the incompatibilities.
Photoshop Elements 8, released in 2009, does not seem to store face regions in the image file. Photoshop Elements is now on version 11, so it might have implemented the metadata guidelines. Picasa 3.9, the current version, does store face regions in the file metadata, but they are not recognised by Photoshop 8.
Face regions are stored separately from tags. Tags are widely used to facilitate searching files containing tag labels. For example, photos depicting Albert tagged as ‘Albert Adams’, can be found from my operating system or image software. Photoshop created tags as I labelled face regions, but Picasa did not. It turns out I want both.
For now, I prefer using Picasa for naming people as it is more user-friendly, but use Photoshop for other image editing tasks.
Sharing and online collaboration
I would like to share this photo online in a way that allows fellow genealogists or relatives to tag the unidentified people.
Social media sites such as Facebook and Google+ have face region and tagging capabilities. However, only people with whom you are associated on the website can be tagged for reasons of online privacy and social etiquette. Most of the people in this photo are long dead and certainly not on social media!
Picasa has a facility to upload photos, which is in transition from the old ‘Picasa Web Albums’ to ‘Google + Photos’. I uploaded the photo and viewed it online, but am not sure which service was in operation when I could see this in my browser:

So, dear relatives, can you identify any of the people not yet tagged?
© Sue Adams 2013
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Posted: 27 May 2013 | Author: Sue Adams | Filed under: Analysis, Genealogy resources, Research strategy, Sue's family research | Tags: 50 Marriage Mondays, Adams, Birmingham, Brain, identity, jeweller, Jewellery Quarter, Lucas, Trade directory |
Edward John Adams or Edward James Adams, featured in ‘Common Surname Trouble – Adams in Birmingham’, presented an identification challenge. This marriage appears to be his second.

Marriage Certiticate – Edward John Adams & Sarah Lucas nee Brain
Bride: Sarah Lucas, widow
Groom: Edward J Adams, widower, jeweller
Date: 2 June 1863
Location: Edgbaston, Birmingham
Groom’s father: James Adams, jeweller
A recap of evidence found so far
Evidence from census, birth and marriage records suggest that Edward John Adams, started out working as a butcher in the 1840s, then became a jeweller and retired around 1870. He was widowed before 1861, so was free to remarry. He had a son, also named Edward, born ca 1837.
Another younger Edward J Adams or Edward James Adams worked as a jeweller from the 1870s and had diversified into watch and clock making by the 1890s. The ages of this Edward indicate a birth date ca 1837, which is consistent with him being Edward John’s son.
Event |
Year |
Name |
Age |
Occupation |
Address |
Household members |
Marriage |
1834 |
Edward Adams |
|
|
|
|
Census |
1841 |
30 |
Butcher |
13 Sand Pits |
Mary (30), Edward (4), Sarah (6), Joseph (2), Maria (1) |
Thomas’ Birth |
1844 |
Edward John Adams |
|
Jeweller & Butcher |
|
Emma’s Birth |
1846 |
|
Butcher |
|
Census |
1851 |
Edward Adams |
40 |
Jeweller |
9 Branston St |
wife Mary (44), children Edward (14), Joseph (12), Jane (8), Thomas(6) and Emma (4), and brother George (27) |
Census |
1861 |
50 |
30 Kenion St |
widowed, children Edward (24), Joseph (22), Maria (21), Jane (19), Thomas (17), Emma (15), niece Sarah (27) |
Thomas’ Marriage |
1866 |
Edward James Adams |
|
|
|
Census |
1871 |
Edward J Adams |
60 |
Retired Goldsmith |
Henwood Hall, Solihull |
wife Sarah (51) |
Census |
1881 |
70 |
Jeweller |
Spring Villa, Kingsbury Rd, Erdington |
wife Sarah (61) |
|
Census |
1871 |
Edward J Adams |
34 |
Jeweller |
76 Spencer St |
wife Emma (34), child Edward J (7), 1 servant |
Census |
1881 |
44 |
Avenue Rd, Acock’s Green |
wife Emma (44), child Edward (17), 1 servant |
Census |
1891 |
Edward James Adams |
53 |
Clock & Watchmaker |
Sunny Side, Augusta Rd, Acock’s Green |
wife Emma (53), 1 lodger |
The records that associate Edward senior with his second wife, Sarah, only give a middle initial J, leaving room for doubt about whether he is the same person the man who married Mary Foster in 1834.
Same person?
Using Ancestry’s ‘UK, Midlands and Various UK Trade Directories, 1770-1941’ collection and bearing in mind the caveats discussed in ‘Picking up the Tailor’s Thread through Trade Directories’, careers and residences of the two men are summarised as follows:
Name |
Years |
Street Address |
Occupation |
Edward Adams |
1839, 1841 |
13 Lower terrace, Sand Pits |
Jeweller |
1849 |
21 Unett St |
Butcher |
1858 |
20 Anderton St |
Jeweller |
1862 |
30 Kenion St |
1866 |
Henwood Cottage, Solihull |
Edward John Adams |
1872, 1876, 1880, 1882 |
Tyburn, Erdington |
private resident |
1884 |
Tamworth Rd, Erdington |
|
Edward James Adams |
1872 |
76 Spencer St |
Jeweller |
1873 |
76 Spencer St & 70 New St |
1876 |
76 Spencer St, 70 New St, 81A Bull St |
Gold spectacle maker, jeweller & electro-plater |
1880, 1882 |
76 Spencer St & 81a Bull St |
1884 |
34 St Paul’s Square & 81a Bull St |
Spectacles maker, jeweller & optician |
1888 |
34 St Paul’s Square & 82 Bull St |
1876, 1880, 1882 |
The Avenue, Acock’s Green |
private resident |
1884 |
Hazelwood Rd, Acock’s Green |
1892 |
Auckland house, Sherbourne Rd, Acock’s Green |
Entries for private residents, usually the more affluent and respectable people, do not give the exact street address. Tyburn, Erdington is very close to Kingsbury Road, so I am reasonably sure that the resident Edward John Adams is the same person as the jeweller at Spring Villa on the 1881 census. This census indicates that wife Sarah was born ca 1820 and the birthplace for both is recorded as Warwick, probably meaning the county, which is a bit vague. Sarah appears on the 1851 census with her first husband James Lucas and son William, and as a widow on the 1861 census with William. Sarah Lucas, nee Brain’s birth date, reported as ca 1820, matches the jeweller’s wife at Spring Villa.
Moving out of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter
The trade directory entries chart Edward John Adams’ jewellery business at Sand Pits and Kenion Street in the Jewellery Quarter and his retirement to the suburbs. Edward James Adams expanded his business, occupying Jewellery Quarter premises in Spencer Street and St Paul’s Square as well as nearby city centre premises, whilst residing in Acock’s Green.
Conclusions
This all started with my confusion over the inconsistent naming of Thomas Adams’ father on his marriage certificate. I am now convinced that the middle name James was an error. I am also ready to conclude that Edward John Adams married twice. The second marriage names his father as James Adams, a jeweller, an elusive piece of information.
© Sue Adams 2013
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