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I apologise Christine for not making the search easier I am so thankful to all of the people trying to help me.
Details of Mum and Dad's wedding certificate are as follows.
Married at St. John's Church in Celsea London.
27nd May 1928.
Patrick James Ryan. aged 27 Batchelor, painter, 35a Tetcott Road Chelsea.London.
Father's name Patrick, coach builder.
May Florence Ryan. aged 19 spinster, domestic servant, 30 Tetcott road, Chelsea, London.
Father's name Henry Mark weatherhead, hall porter.
they signed the wedding certificate
Patrick james Ryan.
May Florence Ryan.

I have received an email from my brother saying he remembers Dad saying he was from County Cork.

Sorry forgot to add the witnesses
Henry Mark weatherhead, who was my Mother's Father.
William henry Kennard, I have no idea who this is.

No need to apologise Patricia - I think I was feeling a bit tired and grumpy last night. But now, armed with this information, I'll have another go. Fingers crossed!!

Now, just one more thing. Shouldn't your mother's maiden name read Weatherhead instead of Ryan?!

Sorry again Christine, of course it should be Weatherhead.

A propos of nothing, I did manage to find your mum on the 1911 census and thought you might not have it:

203 WEATHERHEAD, Henry 36head Married M 36 1875 Bricklayor's Labourer London Marylebone VIEW
203 WEATHERHEAD, Emmie Wife Married
4 years F 24 1887 London Pimlico VIEW
203 WEATHERHEAD, May Daughter F 3 1908 London Chelsea VIEW
203 WEATHERHEAD, Louie Daughter F 1 1910 London Chelsea

And a William Henry Kennard in Chelsea, just in case you ever want to look into him!

KENNARD, Jessie Francis Head Widow F 42 1869 St Heliers Jersey VIEW
KENNARD, William Henry Son M 7 1904 Chelsea London VIEW
KENNARD, Frederick Son M 3 1908 Chelsea London

You will realise from this that I still haven't found the Ryans ...

If Patrick James Ryan was from Cork he possibly wasnt in England in 1911.

The 1911 Ireland census is free to search

I think the last poster's advice is looking increasingly useful! I have searched again, all combinations, but nothing comes close. Time to search Ireland 1911!

Hi all, my name is Michael and I am Patricia's brother. Thank you all for contributing your time to help us with this search that has remained pretty much fruitless for the past nine years or so. It appears that some confusion may be creeping into the threads so I will try and clarify a few points.

We have no problem with tracing our mother's side of the family tree (Weatherhead), having established many branches and having made contact with distant relatives being desendandants of great and great great grandparents. The problem is finding anything about our father and his ancestors.

We always knew our father's name as Patrick James Ryan born on 13 Jan 1900 (+ or -1 year). He said that he as born in County Cork and was brought up by the nuns as there were too many children for his parents to take care of.

FACTS:
Every document that we know to be correct records his name as Patrick James Ryan (their 5 children's birth certificates between 1929 and 1940, and our parent's marriage certificate of 1928). On our parent's marriage certificate our father's father's name is noted as being Patrick Ryan, a coachbuilder.

Our father told us that he lied about his age to join the army in 1914 at the age of 14.

He had two sisters living in London that we met, named Nellie and Vera. They both called by the name Pat. (We do not know Nellie or Vera's surnames (married we assume, but I do not recall ever seeing husbands or children).

One further item of fact is that our father had a visit from a sister who lived in Wales who had a daughter of a similar age to Paticia. Patricia does not recall her name or any other details about her a she was not made welcome by our father. This visit took place in London somewhere around 1962-63.

Now this is where the contradictions and questions start::
As Patricia said, following our father's death in 1971, she discovered some documents that had been in his possession when he died:
A copy of a birth certificate for James Ryan, father's name Patrick Ryan, mother's name Gwenllian, formerly Evans. The DOB was recorded as 15 May 1900 at Dowlais, Glamorgan and the occupation of father of James was Private in 9th King's Royal Rifles. This certificate copy had been obtained in 1961.

He also had a newspaper cutting about the death of a Patrick Raymond Ryan in 1935 . He died due to contracting septicaemia. The article also mentions a son named George Michael (coincidentally? my name is Michael George). Patrick Raymond Ryan had been living at 28 Gray Street, Canton Cardiff. His former occupation was listed as steel worker. WE have obtained the death certificate of Patrick Raymond Ryan and it has not increased our knowledge.

We have no idea why he obtained the birth certificate of James Ryan or the newspaper cutting.

Note: The only reference to someone named Patrick Raymond Ryan is in the cutting, the only reference to Gwenllian is in James Ryan's birth certificate (which had the name of the father as Patrick not Patrick Raymond).

Patricia believes that James Ryan's birth certificate is our father's and that Patrick Raymond Ryan is our grandfather. I am unconvinced as I cannot "join the dots." In fact, although I have no hard evidence to the contrary, I do not believe that the JAmes Ryan birth certificate is my father's and I cannot accept the linkage between James Ryan and Patrick Raymond Ryan.

Thank you for your patience if you have stuck with this, but we are completely out of ideas.

Further to my previous post, there is certainly a lesson to be learned from the results of the research that has been done by other posters. The 1896 wedding between Gwenllian Evans and Patrick Raymond fooled me, and it was not until after I had sent to the GRO for a copy of Gwenllian's marriage certificate to Patrick Raymond Ryan that I realised why I could find no entry in the records for Patrick Raymond Ryan getting married to Gwenllian. Of course this Gwenllian married Patrick (surname Raymond). which was quite clear in the post,

Further the post about the Weatherhead family contained in the 1911 Census results was interesting As a search would have revealed no Emma Liza Weatherhead (my grandmother) as she was incorrectly entered in the census as Emmie Weatherhead. Further a search would not have found the second child, Louisa Weatherhead as she was incorrectly entered in the census as Louie Weatherhead.

Hi Michael.
Thank you for adding the extra details. You are also correct in that even using name variants Emmie and Louie do not show up on the 1911 census.

I always thought name variants picked up mistranscriptions but not in this case

Yes Quinsgran, so did I think that the name variants would have found both of those names. A good lesson learned for us ancestry researchers, but if I enter Emm and Lou into the respective names searches both people are found.

Because of this I will now modify how I search for people if there is no immediate success.

Hi Michael.
Do you have any idea of when Vera and Nellie may have been born?
Older or younger than your father would even give a guide.

Maybe the best route would be to try and trace Veras birth as she has the less common name for that time.

Did they all have Irish ,welsh or english accents?

Hi Vivienne,
Unfortunately I do not have any photos of Nellie or Vera, which would make it a bit easier to judge their relative ages (I haven't seen either of them since I was, at the most, fifteen). However my memory of them suggests that Nellie was the older of the two, possibly by up to ten years. Nellie could have been older than my father, but from my perspective at that age, all uncles and aunts were old.

There was no trace of any accent other than English (as there wasn't with our father).

I feel that you are correct with your suggestion of concentrating on Vera and trying to establish a link through her, as Nellie may well have been a pet name from one of many variants.

Doesn't seem to be any Vera Ryans before 1901. There's plenty more than these two but they looked interesting.

Births Sep 1901
RYAN Vera Wealthea Pancras 1b 117

Births Mar 1902
Ryan Vera Cardiff 11a 425

1911
RYAN VERA F 1902 9 Cardiff Glamorganshire
These seem to be the people with her, no adults old enough to be parents.
RYAN JOHN M 1893 18 Cardiff Glamorganshire
RYAN ARTHUR M 1896 15 Cardiff Glamorganshire
RYAN DORIS F 1898 13 Cardiff Glamorganshire
RYAN BERTIE M 1899 12 Cardiff Glamorganshire
RYAN EDITH F 1901 10 Cardiff Glamorganshire
RYAN LINDA F 1904 7 Cardiff Glamorganshire


And this seems the family in 1901:
1901 Wales Census
Name: Doris Ryan
Age in 1901: 3
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1898
Relation: Daughter
Father's Name: James
Mother's Name: Emily
Gender: Female
Where born: Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales
Civil parish: Canton
Ecclesiastical parish: Canton St Paul
County/Island: Glamorgan
Country: Wales
Street Address:
Condition as to marriage:

Occupation:

Registration district: Cardiff
Sub-registration district: West Cardiff
ED, institution, or vessel: 26
Neighbors: View others on page
Household schedule number: 392
Household Members:
Name Age
James Ryan 30 - Coal Hawker [I think]
Emily Ryan 27
John Ryan 8
Arthur Ryan 5
Doris Ryan 3
Bertie Ryan 2
Edith Ryan 4

All born Cardiff.
That looks like a dead end.

Good Morning,

I have found the following on the 1901 census (sorry but don't know how to cut and paste!):-

Chatham Barracks 1901

Patrick Ryan 29 Infantry Soldier born Ireland
Annie Ryan wife 23 born Ireland
Ellen (Nellie?) 3 born Ireland
Patrick under 1 month born Chatham

Judy

Births Dec 1900
Ryan Patrick Joseph Medway 2a 597

Medway is reg'n district for Chatham.

Patricia, are you the same person that had the Mary Guest thread? If so the comment I made was a joke. That is why I put the little laugh symbol after it. I'm sorry if I offended you.

Ozi.

No ozi I'm not the Patricia with the Mary Guest thread, and you haven't offended me

Hi Ozibird,
I have previously eliminated the March 19025 Vera after obtaining her birth certificate. THanks for the other possibilities, I will work through them.