Leicestershire renegades

Before the 20th century things were much more simple for everyone. A man married a woman, the woman took on the surname of her husband, children were born in wedlock (or else incur tremendous shame), often the first son would be named after the father or grandfather. And so on. Very easy indeed for 21st century genealogists like me.

Very occasionally things happened differently. Thomas Kisby (1709 - 1765) of Barnwell, Northamptonshire, made a decision to spell his surname "Kisbee" and his son, Franklin, became the source of all today's Kisbees.

A century and three generations later, Charles Kisbee (born 1845 in Barnwell) moved to Leicestershire and evidently had some problem with the letter 'e'. He changed his family name back to "Kisby". His seven surviving children were born "Kisbee" but married as "Kisby" and (for 3 of them anyway) died as "Kisby". The eldest son Charles Kisby died in very unfortunate circumstances aged only 9 years old, after he found a bottle of liquid in a farm building and drank it, only to find it contained carbolic acid.

Leicester Asylum

Charles Kisbee's second eldest son, William Kisby, married Lucy Starmer in 1901. It seems a very tragic story for Lucy. Their second daughter, also Lucy, died before her second birthday. Maybe this tipped her poor mother over the edge, because Lucy Kisby ended up as an 'inmate' in the Leicester Asylum for many years. While his wife was a psychiatric patient, William Kisby decided to grow his family with another woman, Alice Stearn, who bore five Kisby children with him out-of-wedlock. In July 1918 Lucy Kisby died of TB, still at the Asylum, finally giving the opportunity for William to marry Alice Stearn almost exactly 3 months later. Will we ever know the full story to this unusual arrangement?

Not to be outdone by William, Charles Kisby/ee's youngest child, Ada Kisby, decided to plough her own unconventional furrow as well. Ada appears to bear children to John Harbot, a Leicester shoe manufacturer. John Harbot had already been married twice, his second wife (also an Ada) very much alive during this whole time. Ada Kisby remains unmarried and dies at the ripe age of 87 in Leicester,  no doubt surrounded by her children of many surnames!!