Ditta & Hillis Family

Rita,

Hopefully Jane, our administrator, will see this post and put you in touch with Margaret.

Since you have lost your records, if it helps, I assume you are trying to trace the ancestry of Elizabeth Maria Leitita Ditta who was born in Glens, Co. Offaly, on 8.6.1912 to what looks like Takoo Ram Ditta and Lillie Ram Hillis. (I think you posted a couple of times previously about the family).

There was this Hillis family in Glens in 1911:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/King_s_Co_/Eglish/Glens/552002/

Same family in 1901:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Tipperary/Borrisnoe/Greenhills/1701672/

Samuel Hillis married Elizabeth Berry on 7.8.1883 in Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh. According to the 1911 census they had 11 children, all of whom were alive that year. The 11 children appear to be:

Mary Alice, James, Emily, Samuel, George, Wilhelmina, Margaretta Josephine, Florence, Charlotte, Harriet & S. Francis. You say that Samuel Hillis was Lillie’s father. I don’t see a birth for a Lillie/Lily/Lillian Hillis anywhere in Ireland and if she is his daughter, that’d make 12 children.

I see Mary Alice with her grandparents in the 1901 census, so that tells you the Berry family lived in Tullyvallen, Co. Armagh:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Armagh/Newtownhamilton…

I note from the 1912 birth certificate that the father was in Pashawar, India, (nowadays it’s Peshawar, Pakistan). There’s no sign of Lillie and her husband in the 1911 Irish census, and given that he was in India in 1912, perhaps he never visited Ireland?

Possibly she married in Peshawar. There certainly isn’t a marriage in the Irish statutory records, and there’s no sign of her or her husband in the 1911 Irish census. You might want to check for a birth or marriage in India using the GRO Overseas birth and marriage indexes.

It should also be possible to check whether the father ever practiced as a barrister in England or Ireland. 

No birth certificates were lost in the 1922 fire. (They were kept elsewhere).

Have you been able to find out what happened to the other sisters? If there’s one left over then that could be “Lillie”.

Sue,

If there is no father listed on the 1913 birth then that usually points to an illegitimate birth. (That would obviously fit with you not being able to find a marriage). If a woman is married there is a presumption of legitimacy and her husband’s name is entered whether he is present or not. Her surname normally appears as his plus “formerly X”. If the child is illegitimate, the father has to be present and acknowledge paternity before his name can appear. Sounds to me like an illegitimate birth where the father was not present. Of course it all rather depends on what she told the Registrar of births because obviously with the 1912 birth in Birr she said she was married. They can’t both be right. Murphy might also be a white lie, and/or maybe Mr Murphy was the father? (With illegitimate births it was quite common to put the father’s name in as a middle name). I haven’t seen it used as a bogus maiden name but you never know.