📷Joseph Parsons Photographer

This was another of my finds from the Alweston Car Boot sale on Bank Holiday Monday, isn’t it a fabulous photo!

What a lovely lot of names and all Parsons!

Uncle Walt, Walter Godfrey Parsons, married Elsie E Hatton in April 1920. They had two children.

I started a family tree with Hilda Ivy Parsons with a spouse called Johnson. The most likely of the two results that came up on Find My Past was Frank Edwin Johnson. The couple had married in 1928 in Greenwich, Kent. Because of this, I could easily trace Hilda’s marriage record on Ancestry which gave her age as 26, born in 1902, which led me to the family in the 1911 census. With 7 of their 8 children. The names match those on the back of the photo.

Finding the family in the 1901 census was a lot trickier, thank goodness for Family Search where I was able to see the details in the transcription and then match up the details of where the family were in Greenwich West, which led me to find the mistranscribed record on Ancestry that I have now corrected, I also corrected the places where the family were born on the 1911 census above as Ancestry had also mis transcribed those, giving us Willesden, Penge, and Greenwich all in Devon.

1901 Census with Joseph Parsons and his family details, their surname transcribed on Ancestry as **PAROONS** made it very difficult to find.

I was so surprised to see that Father Joseph was a Photographer on the 1911 census and on the two previous census records, and so was his son Joseph for a while.

On this 1891 census Joseph and his wife Emma with their son Joseph Reginald Parsons. A photographer here, but what studio did he work for.

I would really have liked to find out more about Joseph Parsons but I suspect, as he described himself on the 1911 census, as a Photographers Assistant, that he worked at another Photographers studio and didn’t actually have his own.

This was all I found out about him from Photo London. “Parsons, Joseph. Born 1869. Died 1919. Biography
Parsons, Joseph Born in Willesden 1869. 2 brothers & 2 sisters. Md Emma S. (b Penge 1870). 3 sons & 2 daughters. 1901: photographer living at 7 Orchard Hill, Blackheath, Greenwich. Died in Camberwell 1919. Photographer.” There are errors here in this information. Joseph died in 1954 not 1919, and he and his wife Emma had 4 sons and 4 daughters. Always good to do your own research, and only use these types of reference sites as a guide, even though it’s a brilliant site.

Here’s the family group from the tree I’ve compiled on Ancestry:

Here’s the direct link to the tree: Parsons Family Tree

Are these your family Ancestors? Please do get in touch if they are. Also if you have more information about Joseph Parsons, Photographer I would love to know more.