When my 4th great grandmother Catherine Birks [Unknown-539238, MFL7-DR2] (maiden name unknown) died in 1845, the informant on her death registration was Jasper Burns, in attendance, Kidderminster. The law required that the informants be the closest available relatives; “in attendance” doesn’t mean that he was an attending physician but that he was with Catherine during her final illness, albeit not present when she actually died.
As I don’t yet know Catherine’s maiden name or where and when she was born, knowing the name of a relative could be helpful in figuring that out – although unfortunately I haven’t made much progress on that as of yet either!
Jasper was a very uncommon name in 19th-century Britain, and there is only one Jasper Burns anywhere near Kidderminster on the 1851 Census (HO107/2038/387/22). The same family also appears on the 1841 Census (HO107/1208/7/18/28) and, although FindMyPast transcribes his name as “John”, Ancestry.com has a better scan of the census return and transcribes it as “Josper”. Based on this, I think we can be reasonably certain that this Jasper is the correct one.
The 1841 Census has Jasper born between 1802 and 1806, and the 1851 has him born in 1811. The only death record for a Jasper Burns anywhere in England and Wales after 1837 is in September 1873 (district Kidderminster, Vol 6c Page 119), which has him as age 79, suggesting a birth around 1794. I can’t find him on the 1861 Census, but the 1871 Census has a widowed Jasper Burns, age 76 (RG10/3035/19/34). In all cases the occupation of “wool comber” matches, and the birth place of Ireland is consistent in 1851 and 1871; 1841 simply marks him as not born in the same county (Worcestershire), and although people born in Ireland are supposed to be marked separately, in practice the indication of birth places on this census is very haphazard, so I wouldn’t consider this a contradiction.
The Irish Genealogy Church Records site unfortunately doesn’t have a matching baptism for Jasper, so we can’t say more specifically when he was born. It’s usually a reasonable assumption that ages given earlier in life are more accurate, so my guess is that he was born in the first decade of the 19th century rather than the last decade of the 18th, but that could be wrong. It suggests that his relationship to Catherine is probably a nephew (or nephew-in-law) rather than a brother (or brother-in-law), but either is possible.
In both 1841 and 1851, the Burns family is living with a Charlotte Fawcett, who is given as a sister-in-law in 1851. This implies that Jasper’s wife Mary Ann’s maiden name was Fawcett – which matches up with the maiden name given on the births of their children, and with a marriage of Jasper Byrnes and Mary Ann Fawcett on 6 June 1826 at Kidderminster. The spelling “Byrnes” was also used on some of the children’s births.
There is a baptism for a Charlotte Fawcett in Kidderminster on 23 Feb 1808 and a Mary Ann Fawcett on 8 Sep 1820, both with the parents James and Elizabeth Fawcett. It is possible that these are Jasper’s wife and sister-in-law, but as the census implies that Charlotte was born between 1812 and 1820 and Mary Ann in about 1806, they aren’t a great match.
Interestingly, Catherine’s husband George Birks is also shown on the 1841 Census as not born in the same county (HO107/1208/1/22/3); I had previously assumed that this implied that he was born in a different English county, but with this connection to Ireland in the same family I am now wondering whether he might’ve been born there. “Birks” and “Burns”/”Byrnes” are not entirely different names – perhaps they are two misspellings of the same original surname? Unfortunately there are no obvious matches for George’s baptism in Ireland either.
A possible marriage for George and Catherine is George Birkes and Catherine Cook on 13 March 1814 at Oldswinford – but as Oldswinford is a moderately significant distance away (about 7 miles, but very definitely attached to Stourbridge rather than Kidderminster), we would need some more evidence before accepting this as the correct one.