Jacobus Simons

Margaret Clements My Great Grandmother by Jonathan Simons
As a child I knew very little about my Grandfather, Lou, and even less about my Great Grandfather, Jacobus and nothing about my Great Grandmother, Margaret. Having found out more about the family I am very much in awe of the physical and mental hardship she must have endured with all those children, so many of them perishing in early life. Only one of the children born at 99 Titchfield Street survived, and that was my grandfather Lou. The rest fell victim to TB, an infection caught from a carpenter in the basement. She was, however, by all reports a kind and caring lady, loved by all.
	She married as a minor, and so had to declare a father on the marriage certificate. It would seem that her father was unknown because the 'Samuel Clements - Labourer (deceased)' declared seems to have been her grandfather - a fact discovered by Jenny Simons in her detailed researches into census returns and certifiates of all sorts. Another,more obvious fact, is that Margaret was pregnant when she married Jacobus as the birth of her first child occurred less than nine months after the marriage.

Margaret Clements

My Great Grandmother by Jonathan Simons

As a child I knew very little about my Grandfather, Lou, and even less about my Great Grandfather, Jacobus and nothing about my Great Grandmother, Margaret. Having found out more about the family I am very much in awe of the physical and mental hardship she must have endured with all those children, so many of them perishing in early life. Only one of the children born at 99 Titchfield Street survived, and that was my grandfather Lou. The rest fell victim to TB, an infection caught from a carpenter in the basement. She was, however, by all reports a kind and caring lady, loved by all.

She married as a minor, and so had to declare a father on the marriage certificate. It would seem that her father was unknown because the 'Samuel Clements - Labourer (deceased)' declared seems to have been her grandfather - a fact discovered by Jenny Simons in her detailed researches into census returns and certifiates of all sorts. Another,more obvious fact, is that Margaret was pregnant when she married Jacobus as the birth of her first child occurred less than nine months after the marriage.

30/10/99 - J.Simons