Genealogy Chat

Do any of you wonderful sleuths know if I can track my fathers birth parents.

I know the following facts:

Born 9th March 1944, one of twins, Terence and Maureen, born in Lambeth. I know the father was supposed to be a GI.

are there any registers I could check to see surnames of Twins born on the above date?

Otherwise any suggestions would be welcome.

Kind regards,

Lisa

If his parents were not married, the chances of the father being named are not good..........especially if he was not British.

Reg,

Thank you Reg, any suggestions about the registers/mother?

Lisa

They might both be on the birth index. If you send me a private message with their surname and what details you have, I'll see if I can find their birth registration.

I had a problem finding a birth registration for my father-in-law for 1940 so I tried looking him up using his mother's maiden name and found him exactly where he was supposed to be on the register and ordered a certificate. When it arrived there was no father named but there was a cross-ref to a later adoption, so I ordered a copy of the certificate for that. Unfortunately, no natural father was named on that either.

This is the first he ever knew about not being the natural son to the father he'd grown up with, though, he'd always had a strange memory of attending his parent's wedding. Not so strange as it turned out because he was 4 or 5 when his mother married his adoptive father.

The sad truth is that his mother died several years earlier without telling him anything (old fashioned sense of shame or something) so he will most probably never know who his natural father was except that his mother told my mother-in-law (under strict instruction that she wasn't to tell him) that his father was a soldier who died in the war.

The only hope we have is that he has memories of visiting someone he called 'grandma', but not his maternal grandmother, at a certain address near to where he was brought up so, in about another 40 years, we may be able to check the census for those living at that address and then see if they had a son killed in the war!!!

Unfortunately, unless he goes on to be a grand old age, this will be too late for him.

I think this reinforces the idea of talking to living relatives about individual backgrounds before all too important information dies with them.

That's true, Steven. My grandma was very selective with the truth and my aunty didn't know who her biological father was for many years. My aunty would like to try to find out more about him and often asks me if I can help because I'm into genealogy and I desperately wish I could but we have no information from Grandma but his name, job and a possible birthplace so I doubt it's even possible.

And people were so secretive about it and what they knew that you never know whether elderly relatives are telling the truth or a version they were given years ago to repeat if anyone started asking questions.

I have a similar story to Kate.

My grans cousin is an illegitimate child and all she knows is that her father was called Frank and that he was in the Navy.

Her mother wouldnt tell her about him, her aunts wouldnt tell her after her mother passed away and neither would my grt grandfather. Which, to me, just seems stupid as all she wanted was a name.

Supposidly though her mother and Frank had wanted to get married but for some unknown reason her family was against it. Usually its the other way round and they would have wanted her to get married as soon as possible.

My gran asked me when i started, if i could do anything with just a name, a date when he would have been present in Edinburgh and his occupation and i hated telling her there was nothing. i even checked her cousins birth cert to see if there where any clues there...but nothing.

I know he knows, he has a daughter though and one can only hope he told someone about her and that they come looking one day. Its a bit far fetched to be thinking that but you never know.

Mhairi

It might be easier to find their baptism if you have no clue of surname. Depending exactly where they were born, there may be an obvious church.