Nancy Hardeman was born in 1801 to Josiah and Ann Hardeman and was baptized in St. Johns Church, Halesowen on Christmas day 1801. Nancy was a common nickname for Ann or Anne but she appears as Nancy on her baptism and marriage record so Nancy seems to be her correct formal name. It is also worth noting that Hardeman appears sometimes as Hardiman in the records. I have no information on Nancy’s early life i.e. before her marriage in 1818, (census records, the most likely source, did not start until 1841). Nancy Hardeman’s first marriage was to Benjamin Brettell (see 383 above) at St John The Baptist, Halesowen on 23rd August 1818, he was a widower with his two children, Sarah aged 7 and Mary aged 9 from his earlier marriage to Elizabeth Price. Although Nancy was only 17 this does not seem to be out of the ordinary for the time (again see 383 above); also Nancy and Benjamin’s first child John was not baptised until Oct 1819, over a year after their marriage.
When Benjamin Brettell died in 1839 Nancy remarried Joseph Fowler, a coal miner, in 1841 when she was 40 and he was 34; however Joseph Fowler died only three years later in 1844 aged 37. Nancy and Joseph Fowler plus the children of her earlier marriage to Benjamin Brettell are shown in the June 1841 census at Peartree Street Old Hill, very close to Lawrence Lane where Benjamin died. There were 7 Brettell children at the address, 6 of them are listed as named Brittle but Hannah, the eldest is listed as Fowler; the family dynamics ruling what surname the children should be listed under is ofcourse unknown. The 8th Brettell child, John Brettell (aged 22) is absent as he married Louisa Mole in 1840 and was living elsewhere as were Nancy’s two, now married, stepchildren: Sarah (aged 30) and Mary (aged 32).
The last person listed was Fanny Brittle, aged 9 months. Benjamin Brettell died in Nov 1839, the date the census was taken was June 1841 so it seems unlikely that he was the father of Fanny, also no birth record for Fanny can be found for 1841. It seems possible therefore that Fanny Brittle was the illegitimate daughter of Nancy Brittle, aged 19 or possibly Hannah Fowler, aged 17. Hannah Fowler’s age is recorded as 20 in the census record rather than the more probable 17 which may be to cover the illegitimate birth; alternatively the mother, Nancy Fowler, was only 40 and could have been thought the mother of Fanny by the enumerator. It is possible of course that Nancy was indeed the mother of Fanny by some father other than Benjamin Brettell. People were not necessarily keen to tell enumerator officials “their business”, especially if their complicated family relationships may be questioned, so being vague in such circumstances was common. This combined with early deaths, remarriages, stepchildren from earlier marriages, reuse of surnames down the generations and illiteracy must have made the enumerator's job difficult: they were not well paid, of varying diligence , and so just taking the head of the household's word may have been the easiest approach for them.
Ten years on, in the 1851 census Nancy appears as Nancy Tromans, a widow. A possible explanation is that there is a record of a Nancy Fowler marrying a William Truman at St. Martins, Birmingham in 1845 and there is a death registered to William Truman in Birmingham in 1849, so maybe Nancy Fowler (earlier Brettell) became Nancy Truman and this was misheard as Nancy Tromans by the census enumerator or subsequently mis-transcribed . In the census Nancy Tromans is shown as widow and head of the household “122 Back of Garrets Lane, Rowley Regis". This is a road now called Garretts Lane which runs from the centre of Old Hill over the Dudley canal in the directly of Rowley. It can be seen from the 1882 OS map that the area was grim with houses adjacent to the collieries or gas works, "back of Garrets Lane was probably even grimmer. The lane appears in the lives of Nancy Hardeman and Maria Brettell a number of times. Present in the census are Nancy’s children, Mary A, Benjamin, Josiah and Maria (shown as Maria Cooper, a widowed lodger). Timothy, Hannah and Thomas Cooper, Maria’s children, are also present. Finally there is Benjamin Brettle, aged 2, and John Brettle, aged 1 month. These cannot be Nancy’s children and it is less likely that they are Maria’s as she probably would have called them Cooper; I think that they are possibly children of Mary A Brettle who would have been 17 when Benjamin was born: a repeat of being vague with the census enumerator. Nancy Hardeman is absent from any census later than 1851 and therefore probably died between 1851 and 1861.