🍞The Rourke family🥕🍅🍌

Last weekend we went to the Antiques Fair and Fleamarket at the Matford Centre in Exeter, we used to go quite frequently before Covid but have only been a couple times since, it’s a great venue but sadly a shadow of what it was like before, it was always buzzing and full of sellers and buyers, a real shame. Saw just one seller we knew but still got a few nice old photos this small group of four had some writing on the outside of the card folder they were in.

It said “Early Rourke Family” I shared these photos on social media with the information I had, and as often happens one of my followers came up with a potential family.

Two little girls, siblings with the photo taken at studios in Reading, Berkshire

A family photo with Mother, Father and two little girls.

Sarah on Twitter/X said “Charles Lunt Rourke born Reading, wife Emily born Cove, Hants. On the 1921 census 2 daughters Hilda May age 11, and Barbara Agnes age 8. Living 64 Langborough Road Wokingham“. and “Could Early be a typo for Earley, which is on the edge of Reading?“

Two little girls again with the photo taken at studios in Margate, Kent. Holiday pic?

So following up on this potential family by creating a family tree on Ancestry and starting to add various records for the family, it certainly looks like an excellent match.

Here’s the 1911 census for the family of three, as it was then, as the youngest daughter wasn’t born until 1913. But if you look at what is written, the couple had also had another child that had died.

So I researched this and found that the couple Charles Lunt Rourke 1876-1959 and Emily May (Yeomans) 1879-1963 had married in 1905. Then in the 3rd quarter of 1907 their son Arthur Charles Rourke was born but he died aged just 15 months, the cause of death on the digital death certificate was ‘Dentition Convulsions‘ I’ve not come across that before, but it seems it was more common than you would think, various teething problems were listed as ‘Cause of Death’ in the past.

Two little girls have grown up into lovely young women and the photo was taken at studios in Cove, Hampshire, where mother Emily was born.

Here’s the 1901 census for the Rourke side of the family:

Charles is 25 and a Grocery Assistant, his mother Sarah the head of the household is a widow, his father Charles died in 1900.

Charles stayed in the Grocery business becoming a Grocery Manager.

This is the 1901 census below for the Yeoman’s side of the family:

**Emily** is 22 and an Elementary Teacher, her father is a Farmer.

Here’s the link to the small family tree I have compiled for the Rourke family: The Rourke Family

What do you think? Is it the correct family? and are you related?

These last two old photos I also bought from the same seller, he didn’t think they were related but as they are both taken at the same Reading photo studios it seems more than a coincidence to me.