I saw that! Managed to find an alternative site to find the suggested newspaper for free. Love city directories!

Next step will be the National Archive at Kew to look for the legal end of things.

Chat GPT also helped me create citations and gave me what I might need to ask for from the repository for a more complete citation.

And it gave it to me Evidence Explained style.

Found 2 records at The Keep but no idea what they are. Fees look steep (£10 first page, £4 each thereafter for digital copies), so I’ve asked for an estimate.

These don’t appear to be related to dissolution of partnership, but to the building and expansion of the laundry itself.

Where could I find court or other records. Chat GPT pointed me to several, including the National Archives at Kew, the Hastings County Court, and the East Sussex Record Office (The Keep).

*Working back from the genealogy that I have inherited

And yet on my walk today, listening to #researchlikeapro #344 I’m thinking again of my goal of identifying all of my immigrant ancestors. Good practice says work backwards from what is proven. But maybe for this little project I’ll break the rules with a notation in #rootsmagic and no posts online

Fired off an email to Borough of Lewisham historical archives to ask about local directories and also records of this school. Alas, the Lewisham Library is currently being refurbished so everyone is offsite, according to the autoreply. Bummer.

I’m curious if #EmilyEleanorHarris lived away from home then. She’d have been 20-21. It was about 9-10 km between her last known address and that school.

I did a little digging in newspapers on Find My Past and found this 1897 ad for what I think is the correct school.

All I can think of is that if I had been in poor Paula’s shoes, seeing what happened to Leah and Berta, death would have felt like a mercy in the moment. I’m so sorry that this is a story you have to carry. As horrific as it is, we need to remember now more than ever.