Who was Francis?

Francis Fleetwood Jaunay was baptised in St George Hanover Square in May 1815. His existence only came to light on Christmas Day 2013!

In mid-December FindMyPast placed the Westminster Rate books online. The last time I looked at these books to pursue my London ancestry required a trip to London and hand-written transcriptions. Now they are all available in digitised form – wonderful!

I spent time Christmas morning downloading François Jaunay’s rate records 1801 to 1838 when I discovered Francis Fleetwood Jaunay, born into the family in 1815 in the parish register for St George Hanover Square.

The St George Hanover Square records have been available for about 18 months at FindMyPast but I had never checked them out. However, after downloading the material sought I just decided to do another surname check – and there he was.

No one in the family knows anything about this child and he never features in any correspondence, portraits or photographs and so he must have died young. The register records his birth 15 Feb 1815 and baptism 26 May 1815 but no signs of his death so far. He does not feature in the portrait of the children painted in 1825 and that suggests he was deceased by that time.

Just goes to show that your researching - even after more than 40 years - is never final!

His discovery has raised a number of questions...

1. Where did the name Fleetwood come from? His younger brother has the second name Brunet from his step-uncle but to date the name Fleetwood has never arisen in any family history research.

[Is there some sort of naming pattern? The first daughter was named for her mother, the first son for his father. Louisa could be for her grandmother, Marie Louise Jaunay nee Viard but who could Louis be named for?]

2. What happened to Francis? There is no sign of his death in any online databases. I have a large collection of family correspondence dating from 1830 but never is Francis mentioned.