Finds on Ancestry.com

Well with my MSc finally finished I now have a little more time to devote to family tree research. Ancestry.com have recently made the 1841 census available online so I thought I would work my way through my families to see who I could find.

Benjamin LAWRENCE and Elizabeth MAY
I already had some information for Benjamin, but not a lot for Elizabeth. The 1841 census gave me her family before she got married; father was Thomas MAY and mother was Elizabeth, both born around 1792 in Trowbridge, Wilts and Hornton, Somerset respectively.

Benjamin died between 1861 and 1871 censuses and Elizabeth was left to bring up their three children, working as a charwoman. They had a tough life as one of the daughters had fits (epileptic?) and the other was crippled in 1878.

After James left home, Elizabeth and her daughter Elizabeth were boarders in another household in the 1891 census, but by the 1901 Census she was living with James with no mention of the daughter.

Thomas MAY and Elizabeth MARSH
Benjamin and Elizabeth were living in the St Philip & St Jacob area of Bristol, and I know the registers for "Pip and Jay" have been transcribed onto the British Vital Records Index v2. So I did a search of that and found Benjamin and Elizabeth's marriage (29 June 1857) and Thomas and Elizabeth's (20 Oct 1816). I couldn't find any record of any Christenings though.