Jacob Finch – my 3rd great-uncle.
Henry and Jane Finch‘s son Jacob was born on 29 June 1837, according to his Royal Navy records, and was a triplet with Abraham and Isaac. They were baptised on the same day – 20 August – at St Mary Magdelene Church in Reigate, Surrey, and the record says that the boys were all of the same birth.
The 1851 census shows that Jacob worked as an agricultural labourer but he joined the Royal Navy with his brother Abraham in 1856 at around the time of the Crimean War. Enlisting for 10 years and serving on the training ship HMS Illustrious (pictured above), he was described as having a ruddy complexion, brown hair and blue eyes and stood just over 5ft 6ins tall.
However, according to the documents, both Jacob and Abraham were paid off on 20 June 1857 and no reason is given. Jacob’s trail then goes cold and no further records seem to exist. The fact that several close relatives were named Jacob in the mid-1860s could suggest that he died around this time.
An alternative is that he went abroad, like his brother Abraham. Some English-born men by the name of Jacob Finch lived in the US. One is recorded in the 1870 census living as a farmer with his wife Jane in Marlboro, Ohio, aged 35. Could this be our man?
Sources: Ancestry.com, Findmypast.com, Surrey Records Office, National Archives reference ADM 139/319/31853.