Marriage & death certificates of Annie Everard Sparks

Above: Annie Everard's marriage to William Sparks.

Above: the death certificate of Annie Everard Sparkes, 1895.

Annie Everard, the final child of John Everard & Jane Sanders.

I've always been partial to Annie Everard...perhaps it was her name, or the sorrow that I felt as I discovered each of the deaths of three of her four little girls. Her life just seemed to be particularly sad, and I wish that I had a photograph of her to put a face to her memory.

Annie Everard was born on April 2, 1863, some seven years after the birth of her brother, Thomas. It states on her birth certificate(above) however, that a brother named Ignatius had died prior to Annie's birth, and even though no records exist of his birth or death, both events would have taken place during this seven year period.

Annie spent her whole life in Warrnambool...she was born there, married there and died there. Like her two elder sisters, Elizabeth and Mary Ann, she married quite young, and at 18 required the consent of her father John Everard. On June 27, 1881, at Timor Street, Warrnambool, Baptist minister Charles Pickering married Annie Everard and 28 year old English-born William Sparks. William's occupation was 'groom', and Annie had no profession, obviously living at home with her parents.

Over a year later, on October 10, 1882, Annie gave birth to the first of four daughters, and named her Elizabeth Jane Sparks. Annie herself registered the birth, stating that her husband was a 29 year old Ostler (someone who worked with horses) from England, and she was an 18 year old Warrnambool native. No doctor or midwife had attended the birth, just her own mother, Mrs Everard.

In 1882, Mary Ann Maria was born, and she was followed by Florence Mabel Ann in 1888 and Annie Beatrice in 1892. Incredibly, only one of these babies survived- eldest daughter, Elizabeth Jane. Annie lost her other babies aged 10 weeks, 11 weeks and 18 months.

There is confusion over the death certificate of the first baby to die on October 2, 1886. William Sparks, her father, registered the death, and gave conflicting information re. her name and age. He stated that his daughter's name was Jane Elizabeth Sparks and that she was 1 year and 6 months old.There was no child registered by this name...first born daughter was named Elizabeth Jane, and she was the only one NOT to die in infancy. Similarly, for a baby to be 18 months old in October of 1886, she must have been born in April of 1885. Mary Ann Maria was the baby born in 1885, and also named as having died on the birth certificates of her sisters Florence and Annie, as well as her mother Annie's death certificate.

The cause of death registered for Mary Ann Maria's demise was "congenital debility and bronchitis", the latter having afflicted her for nine months. Daughter Florence Mabel Ann Sparks died died on June 15, 1888, in Koroit Street, Warrnambool. She was ten weeks old, and succumbed to bronchitis after suffering from the affliction for four days.

Final child Annie Beatrice Sparks died on May 7, 1892, in Koroit Street, aged 11 weeks. Again the cause was bronchitis, of four days duration. Like her sisters before her, Annie Beatrice was buried in the Warrnambool Cemetery.In the latter two burials, John Everard was recorded as being a witness...whether this was John Everard Senior or Junior, I do not know.I have never before come across the condition 'bronchitis' being so fatal in a family over a period of years...usually it is common to see an outbreak disease like whooping cough, diphtheria or measles proving devastating to a family's children over one short period of time...bronchitis claimed the lives of three babies over six years.

Annie Everard Sparks died of influenza and pneumonia of seven days duration on July 30, 1895. She was just 34 years old, and surviving her was her daughter Elizabeth Jane, who was almost 13, and her husband William. William Sparks registered his wife's death, and proved himself still confused when it came to the names of his daughters...he named Annie's children as "Jane Elizabeth 11; Anna Maria dead; Mabel Jane dead and Annie Jane dead."

Thomas Everard- another Man of Mystery!

Thomas Everard is the mystery man of the Everard family. Above is his birth certificate which proved he existed, but he left no tracks in his life that I can pick up...no marriage, no children, no death. Not even information on his parent's death certificates can agree on when Thomas Everard died...The 1895 death certificate of his father John Everard states that Thomas had pre-deceased him, yet when his mother died in 1908 the informant stated that Jane Everard's son Thomas was 48 years old!

I have not been able to find Tom in any electoral roll, nor in the National Library of Australia newspaper index. I have one single tiny lead that I am about to pursue....I found a death in the Queensland death index for a Thomas EVERETT, who died on November 7, 1911, the son of John Everett and Jane Saunders. Everett is one of the common misspellings for 'Everard', just as 'Saunders' has often mistakenly been substituted in records for 'Sanders'.

The Brisbane Courier of January 25, 1912, published a notice pertaining to the administration of several estates, including the estate of Thomas Everett, late of Bendena Station, Cunnamulla, labourer.

Queensland marriage records had an entry for a Thomas Everett marrying Margaret Abrahams in 1882, and a child, Annie Margaret, being born in 1883(she subsequently died in the same year). Margaret Everett died in 1945, the daughter of Henry Abrahams and Mary Williams.

I have no idea if any of these people relate to my Thomas Everard...I will have to apply for the death certificate of Thomas Everett and hope for the best.

BINGO!!!!! UPDATE ON THE DEATH OF THOMAS EVERARD.

I finally got around to downloading the death certificate of the Thomas Everett who died in Queensland in 1911, and sure enough it was a match. Our Tom was mistakenly recorded as "Everett", and his mother's name was recorded as 'Saunders' rather than 'Sanders', but without a doubt he is "ours".

 

Mary Ann Everard's Marriage Certificate.

Above: Marriage certificate of Mary Ann Everard and Walter Baker.

Above: Marriage certificate of Walter Baker's parents in London, 1826.

Above: Baptismal entry for Walter Baker's mother, Mary Ann Turland. She was baptised on 16 November, 1807, at St Leonard Shoreditch, Middlesex, daughter of William Turland and Mary Turland (maiden name Chamberlain).

War Record of Henry Draper Baker.

Harry Baker and his brother Charlie joined the A.I.F together in July of 1915, but unlike Charlie, Harry survived the horrors of War and came home to Australia. In 1919 he married
Isabella Ruby Ferris.

Henry Draper Baker died in 1969, aged 75 years.

Exhumation & reburial of Charlie Baker and his mates.

Above: I have no photograph of Charlie Baker, but this is his mate, Horace Carroll, who was shot and killed in the trench alongside Charlie and two other Australian soldiers. As can be seen from the documentation below, the bodies of Charlie, Horace and the other two men were exhumed in 1927, and buried together in an official war cemetery in France.

Charlie Baker's War Records.