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I wasn't going to keep fishing ... supper must be made ... but ...

For Stanley Gray births, for one of an age to have married Grace (that Grace Violet Gray death really is just such a good match for her name, birth details and location), we're spoiled for choice.

This might be a likely suspect, though:

Births Dec 1920
Gray Stanley G
Bell
Woolwich
1d 2291

(who could also have been born in late 1919)

This is the closest match I can find for him in the death index:

Name: Stanley George Gray
Birth Date: 27 Aug 1920
Death Registration Month/Year: Nov 1990
Age at death (estimated): 70
Registration district: Bromley
Inferred County: Kent
Volume: 11
Page: 1325

Now, Grace could have been born in Dec 1922 and her birth registered in 1923.

This is the best match for her in the death index:

Name: Grace Violet Gray
Birth Date: 31 Jan 1923
Death Registration Month/Year: Sep 1992
Age at death (estimated): 69
Registration district: Greenwich
Inferred County: London
Volume: 12
Page: 860


But there's no matching Stanley Gray in Woolwich.

And no record of the death of a Grace Kirk born late 1922/early 1923, except for this one:

Name: Grace Helen Kirk
Birth Date: 13 Aug 1922
Death Registration Month/Year: Oct 1987
Age at death (estimated): 65
Registration district: Southampton
Inferred County: Hampshire
Volume: 20
Page: 1223


Someone at GR has a Grace Reeves born 1923 in Surrey in her tree. That might be worth a contact, too.


I'm afraid that right now, I'm just not going to trawl through the marriage index images, four per year (they take quite a while to load, even with high-speed), starting when Grace would have been 17 and proceeding up through the years, looking for her marriage!

If you get a trial sub at Ancestry, you can do that bit. ;)

K

So I've found one Grace Reeves birth:


Reeves, Grace E
mother's surname Cairns
Q4 1919
Islington
1b 547

And the one noted before, Grace M born in West Ham. ...

Reeves, Grace D
mother's surname Hosier
Q2 1921
Islington

Two Graces in Q4 1921, mothers' surnames Webb and Verrinder, born in Thanet and Willesden. ...


And I've found her.


Grace V Reeves
mother's surname: Chapman
birth registered: Jan-Feb-Mar 1923
Woolwich
vol 1d
page 2051


There she is.

And just so's you know, I did this by reading through the untranscribed images of the GRO index starting in first quarter 1919 ... by hand, as it were. I'd asked for Jan 1919 to Dec 1923 ... and fortunately I lost my place halfway through, working my way from the top of the list, and started over at the bottom. ;)


So. We seem to have confirmed that your grandmother Lizzie Reeves had a sister Grace, and that their parents were George Reeves and Florence Emily Chapman.

Next step is to order up the Reeves-Chapman marriage cert and get all the info it has. No point in starting to hunt in censuses etc. unless you have that!

Okay! So we seem to have two facts:

Birth of Lizzie:

Births Mar 1918
Reeves Lizzie A Chapman Woolwich 1d 1586

Marriage of Lizzie's parents:

Name: George Reeves + Florence Emily Chapman
Year of Registration: 1906
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: Woolwich
County: Greater London, Kent, London
Volume: 1d
Page: 2197


At a quick glance, the other Reeves-Chapman births I listed earlier don't seem to have resulted in deaths in early childhood. Is it possible Lizzie had other siblings?

I'd order up the Lizzie birth cert and Reeves-Chapman marriage certificate, to confirm that her parents are that couple. The birth cert will give her parents' full names.

The marriage cert will give the parties' fathers' names, and hopefully the groom's occupation and the fathers' occupations.

If you're feeling flush, you might order another of the Reeves-Chapman birth certs to see whether the parents are the same as Lizzie's, if you're curious about other potential siblings.

Ah -- I see you have Leslie 1912 (who actually seems to be the only other likely candidate, since there are overlapping pregnancies in the other cases) in your tree here at GR. Is that a recent addition, from the info I've dug up, or something you knew already??

I see there is someone else here who has a Lesley born 1912 in England -- you might want to try a contact, just in case it's the same Leslie by a different spelling. (FreeBMD doesn't show any Lesley Reeves born between 1910 and 1915.)


There were several Florence Emily Chapman births in Kent (assuming that birth county) that could be yours (we'll call her yours for now).

This one was in Woolwich:

Name: Florence Emily Chapman
Year of Registration: 1886
Quarter of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar
District: Woolwich
County: Greater London, Kent, London
Volume: 1d
Page: 1317

She'd be just about the right age to be marrying in 1906 (and still be having kids in 1920 or beyond).

There are more George Reeves-s -- more common / less specific name -- including three or so born in Woolwich in years that might make them reasonable candidates:

Name: George Alfred Reeves
Year of Registration: 1887
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: Woolwich
County: Greater London, Kent, London
Volume: 1d
Page: 1215

Name: George Hart Reeves
Year of Registration: 1880
Quarter of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar
District: Woolwich
County: Greater London, Kent, London
Volume: 1d
Page: 1135

Name: George Horace Reeves
Year of Registration: 1878
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: Woolwich
County: Greater London, Kent, London
Volume: 1d
Page: 1092

If you get the marriage certificate, it should give you an age for George to work with.


But seriously now -- have you taken a shot at FreeBMD yourself?

You can look for all these things, and weigh them for yourself, without it being filtered through someone else's possibly erroneous assumptions!

Also -- once you've confirmed which people are yours, you can add a "postem" to their records at FreeBMD, giving an email address where other people interested in the same individuals can contact you. It's a new feature and there arent' many there yet, but hopefully it will expand. I've met several unknown distant cousins through notes I've put on census records at Ancestry.

Is the George Reeves-Florence Emily Chapman marriage the right one, do you think?

I have just spoke to my sister, who say`s there every possibilty, that the abaove is correct,

I know I`m not helping to much, but a fortnight ago I didnt know my dads full name, so this absolutely fantastic information, please please keep trying and big thank you
Ray

Aha. Okay, so Grace was *younger* than Lizzie, not older.

Is there any chance they didn't have the same mother?


Births Dec 1920
Reeves Grace M
mother's surname: Whiter
W. Ham 4a 774


Don't see a Reeves-Whiter marriage though. And still no matching Grace in the death records (using DOB 1918-1928).

The problem at this point is with the transcriptions; they're not complete for this period, so there may very well be other Grace Reeves-s. A search of the images might turn her up.

Getting a birth certificate would give you an exact DOB, which could be used to search the death indexes by given name and DOB, to find the record of her death, and confirm her surname.


You're not being a load of help here though, Raymond.

Lizzie's mother's name, father's name, date of parents' marriage, if you know them?

Mother's name especially -- i.e. the name of your great-grandmother before marriage, or even her first name. Is the George Reeves-Florence Emily Chapman marriage the right one, do you think?

Aunt Grace, as l knew her, was, l have been told was my Grandmothers sister, one of two sisters, Grace and Lizzie, Grace who married Stanley would be the younger of the 2, Lizzie married George in woolwich in c1936, Stanley and Grace had no children and lived most of their lives in Plumstead, where they ended their days, this unfortunately the only information l have, but it is being added to daily.
cheers
Ray

Okay, looking for possible pairs -- Grace and Stanley, born 1913-1923, died anytime after 1984 ...

Don't see a single possible pair that died in the time frame you have.

Of course, the birth dates could be way off, especially if Grace was older than Lizzie, and Stanley older than her again.

You can do this yourself, and search more widely than I have! As far as I know, anyway -- the death indexes at Ancestry are free access, I think, you just can't look at details:

http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=7579

I work with two monitors, so it was easier to compare llists, but you could still do it with one, it would just be even more tedious. ;)

Tried one more thing -- found your Lizzie's birth, and her mother's name was Chapman -- and if you knew it, you should have said, because every scrap of info helps!

Searching for births in Kent 1911-1929 (the transcriptions being spotty for the years before and after 1920), we get:

Births Jun 1912
Reeves Louise Chapman Lewisham 1d 2067

Births Sep 1912
Reeves Rose Chapman Woolwich 1d 2263

Births Dec 1912
Reeves Leslie A Chapman Woolwich 1d 2171

Births Sep 1914
Reeves Lillie R D Chapman Lewisham 1d 2254

Births Mar 1918
Reeves Lizzie A Chapman Woolwich 1d 1586


It looks like Lizzie's parents may have had an alliteration obsession.


Casting the net wider to include all places, there are a few more in St.Geo.H.Sq., Lewisham, Walsall and Leek -- but no Grace. So she must have been considerably younger or older than Lizzie.

Looking for Grace Reeves 1901-1911, there are quite a few, some in neighbouring places, but no way of knowing which might be her, if any. None in Woolwich.


Any chance you know Lizzie's parents' marriage date -- or at least their names, so I can find their marriage wtihout looking through all the Chapmans in the index to see which one married a Reeves? ;)

... Well, I did it the other way around, which was a lot less daunting. Is this them? --

Name: George Reeves + Florence Emily Chapman
Year of Registration: 1906
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: Woolwich
County: Greater London, Kent, London
Volume: 1d
Page: 2197


If so, Grace was presumably born in 1907 or later.

But I'm still not seeing a single Grace Reeves in Woolwich 1907-1929.

Here's a possibility though, going by the middle name:

Name: Grace Florence H Reeves
Year of Registration: 1908
Quarter of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar
District: Hackney
County: Greater London, London, Middlesex
Volume: 1b
Page: 439


Of the others -- I'm looking at:

http://www.freebmd.org.uk

-- none stands out.

And the closest name I see in the death index in Greenwich is:

Grace Florence M Cast

-- and fortunately for us, she was born with that exact name, so she's not yours.


This name matches well, but the death details don't:

Name: Grace Florence H Cutting
Birth Date: 31 Dec 1907
Death Registration Month/Year: Jul 1990
Age at death (estimated): 82
Registration district: Dacorum
Inferred County: Hertfordshire
Volume: 10
Page: 130


The two best matches for a possible husband Stanley would be:

Name: Harold Stanley Cutting
Birth Date: 12 Nov 1902
Death Registration Month/Year: Sep 1990
Age at death (estimated): 87
Registration district: Waltham Forest
Inferred County: London
Volume: 15
Page: 696

Name: Stanley Thornthwaite Cutting
Birth Date: 3 Feb 1903
Death Registration Month/Year: Aug 1987
Age at death (estimated): 84
Registration district: Beverley
Inferred County: Yorkshire
Volume: 7
Page: 117


All that work, not much to show for it.

So. Where did you hear about this mythical Grace Reeves!?

My grandmother, Lizzie Reeves(her sister) was born 1918 in woolwich, married George Davies 1937? yes, Plumstead is in the Greenwich district, it would be a guess if l said Grace was older!

Do you know her approximate year of birth? Or your grandmothers', and was Grace likely older or younger?

As far as I can tell, Plumstead is in Greenwich registry district. I'm over the ocean, so maybe you could confirm. Searching in the death index in Greenwich for Grace and Stanley born 1880-1940, died anytime 1984-1991, there are no Kirks.

If you had an approx date of birth for Grace it might help, for searching by given name, and then whether there was a matching Stanley with the same surname as any of the Graces.

At least you might have an idea of their name then!

hi Margaret, thanks for your efforts, but they were both living in Plumstead SE London when they died.
cheers
Ray

Hi

Have foundntwo that might be the ones

Stanley Malcolm Kirk died Croydon 1/1990 born 8.7.1905

and Grace Hettie E Kirk died Fulham 10/1995 born 11.3.1917


Margaret

Could you try looking at electoral rolls for the time they were both alive at a certain address?

Suzanne

surname name believed to be Kirk? both died around the 1987-89 Grace died a year after Stanley, they lived in the plumstead area of SE London, any help would be appreciated, some further details have come to light in the last hour or so.


. We believe its possible Grace could be my Grandmothers sister, which would make her maiden name Reeves

Thanks
Ray