Genealogy Chat

See below in a min, will try to keep it short but I don't type very fast.

Wanting to keep a long story short......... Mother was brought up by her father and his parents.......was told her mother died when she was 3/4. O.k thinks I, find mothers parents marriage and birth certificates and trace back from there. Made quite easy by the fact that grandmothers name is not at all common.....great. Mother wanted to know how her mother died...........could find no death on the indexes. Did a wider search from when mother was born untill she was 8......still no death!! Made contact with a few distant relations born same area but their families moved away when they were young and they knew nothing of mothers mother. Then made contact with an older family member, didn't know grandmother but remembered family talk at the time and as I still wish to keepit short........grandmother went off with her married second cousin to live in another county. While trawling through the birth indexes I came across a birth for a boy, same first name as the cousin she went off with and mothers maiden name same as the childs surname(cousins born with same surname) O.K. could be a single mother but given the information I'd got and the county the child was born I thought it may just be worth the 7 pounds to find out. Birth certificate has arrived........ Now I have proof grandmother didn't died and mother has a brother.........possible index for a sister as well. I never expected anything like this!!!! But my biggest problem...........How do I tell all this to my mother??????

Do you think your mother has suspected this or would it have never occured to her? Janice

I'd broach it like a joke... eg 'what would you do if you had a million brothers? lol' Gauge her reaction to that, then proceed with caution.

When I started doing this she said mother had died, no reason to question it as she was too young to even remember her. I can hardly believe it myself........thought the relation that thought it was her that went of with her second cousin might have got it wrong and maybe it was someone else but I have their childs birth certificate right here in front of me and she's his mother has her first husbands surname as her late name and her formerly name same as the childs name.........it's her!!!

Is your grandmother still alive?

Hi Is your mothers mother still alive? as this would make a huge difference to how she could react. Take care Little

Tracy, my first reaction was to cry.........for over 60 years she thought her mother had died. What makes it worse is when she was 18 she got pregnant and her family would had nothing to do with her, wasn't easy for a single mother with nowhere to go back then. And all that time she had a mother, her father didn't want her but he didn't want her to know she had a mother!!!! I feel sick!!!!!

I've no idea if she's still alive..........that's the next thing on my list. If she is she'd be 86.

Fiona, Are you on Ancestry? If not, feel free to mail me for any lookups. Janice

Do you think the brother would know about your mum? If he does, he might be looking for her. As the surname is unusual have you tried typing it into Quick Search or Trying to Find? Janice

Thanks Janice, There is no death after 1883 for her but that doesn't mean to say she didn't died before that or after 2002, or who's to say she didn't have another husband and another name.

Searched the message boards on here and Ancestry, nothing. Have found 2 possibles for the brother on B4u, if he still lives in the same area that is. But does he know of my mother??

What about asking someone who has electoral roll discs to do a lookup for you? Or try b4usearch to see if she is alive today.

Oops. You got there first!

What about one of those ..........I'm doing my family tree and think we might be connected................sort of letters? You might need to spend a day at the library trawling all the indexes to work out what has been happening in the inbetween years.

Would have to be careful incase I got the wrong one.......at least there is only two though!

A very general letter giving very little away could be sent to both. They will know if you have the right person.

The relation that gave me the info did say that 20 years later the man went back home for a family death and he was married to a different woman, he didn't know what happened though. Which is why I don't know if she had another hame or not.

Do you know the town? Would it be possible to track them through the electoral rolls?