Help!

Thanks to the help offered on this group, I've managed to put together
some detail on two of the four lines in my wife's grandparents'
families. I've come up against a bit of a block on one of the others
though.

I've traced Frederick Thomas Pettis back to the 1891 census living at
66 Main Road, Bexley, Kent (RG12/636 Dartford Folio 9 Page 7), age 32,
living with wife Matilda (25) and son Frederick Thomas (6) and daughter
Alica Eliza (2). I can find a birth entry for Alice Eliza Pettis in Sep
1889, but can't find anything that looks like the son's birth entry
(which would be about 1885), or a definite marriage entry for Fred Snr
and Matilda (don't know her maiden name), or a census entry for the
father's family in 1881 or earlier. There's a Frederick Pettoy of about
the same age living as a boarder in Welling in the 1881, but no clue
that its the same person

handp...

I would apply for Alice's certificate for the mother's maiden name

I've found a Frederick Thomas Pittis birth on FreeBMD :

Quarter - Mar 1859
Dartford
Volume - 2a
Page - 251

Another certificate worth applying for.

It's a name which obviously causes the transcribers some problems!

If the 1891 census entry is correct as to their ages, that could
indicate that Matilda was 19 when Fred Jnr was born, which in turn
might mean:

a) that they weren't married at the time, putting their marriage
between 1885 and 1889
b) that they were married but she'd lied about her age, putting their
marriage pre 1885
c) that Fred Jnr isn't the son of Matilda, but perhaps is the son of an
earlier marriage of Fred Snr and someone else.

I can find a marriage entry for a Frederick Thomas Petty in June 1883
(Dartford 2a 597), but the page doesn't show any Matilda. Possibly
clutching at straws, but there is a marriage entry for a Matilda
Cunningham in Dartford in the same quarter, but with a different record
(Dartford 2a 628) and an apparent spouse

Any help greatly appreciated