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| Unknown | ||
| ELISABETH STRATTON----- 1854-? | | | | | | | |
| Edith Mary Ann Churchill ---------------------------- 1880-?
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Unknown |
| Lilly Edele Churchill --------------------- 1885-? | | | | | | | |
| George William Churchill----- 1887-? | | | | | | | |
| Ernie Churchill----- 1888-? | | | | | | | |
| George William Churchill 1850-1896 | ||
| Olive Smith----- 1897-? | | | | | | | |
| John Smith 1846-? |
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Elisabeth Stratton was my husband's great-grandmother. She was born in Southampton (2) and married a navy rating, George Churchill, who was then based in Portsmouth. Not long after their marriage, George was posted to Malinmore in Ireland. There, the pair had five children,(1) and by all accounts a very happy time, at a remote coastguard station on the wild northwest coast of Donegal. What happened next is something of a family mystery. We know that George Churchill died in 1896, alone in the Great Yarmouth Naval Hospital. Further research leads us to believe he died of syphilis: we know the witness to his death was not from his family. Elisabeth Stratton and her children returned to Portsmouth, and in 1898 she re-married to John Smith (3), a carpenter from Swanage in Wales. The family settled in Byerly Road, Portsmouth.(2) Elisabeth also had another little girl, Olive, born in 1897: a year before the couple married, and only a year after George Churchill's death. Little more is known about Elisabeth: who were her parents? what happened to her after 1901? So many questions - not many answers. (1) Online transcription of coastguard births and baptisms, Co. Donegal: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~donegal/cguardbth.htm (2) 1901 census record for 141 Byerly Road, Portsmouth (John and Elizabeth Smith). (3) marriage certificate ref 2b 857 |