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I am looking to find a Gillian Walker, born Aug, 1943 in England. Parents; Jean Troup and James Walker. Gillian would be my first cousin. My mother was Margaret Philomena Troup, Jean's sister. Gillian has travelled to Australia to visit family and as of 1983 was working for the British Public Service, in the Solicitor's Department, Department of Trade. I suspect we are more than cousins. Any info would be appreciated.
Contact Bruce McGregor at this site.

Thank you

Someone is going to wag a finger at you for posting an email address, which is against rules. (My personal feeling is that as long as it's an anonymous online account, it does no one any harm but maybe the site owner, and who cares?)

Anyone who wants to contact you can do it by clicking on your name, and you will receive email notification at the address you used to register. No need to post the address, so you can use the Edit link to delete it.

Meanwhile, the premier tool at this site is Search Trees (button in row above this thread).

There are three people here who have a Gillian Walker born 1943 in their trees (two born Colchester, one born Lancaster); two are named Gillian.

You, meanwhile, don't have Gillian in your tree (probably not having a tree).

Two suggestions:
- contact one of those tree owners if the details fit
- put a bare-bones tree on here showing your parents and Gillian and her parents, so that anyone with a match can find you

Also, of course, check back to your thread as I hope you will do (clicking on My Threads on the left of the Trying to Find board will always find it for you immediately), because people here seldom reply by private message unless there is personal info about living people to be offered.

Thanks for the responses. I have removed my hotmail account address.

I have searched the trees for Gillian and found the three names. I have sent messages to each and received one reply. That person is not related.

I have just found out this info along with much else wrt other family members and will be updating my tree shortly.

As Gillian is unmarried and only in my tree, I suspect there will be no matches.

Thanks again.
Bruce

Hi
Does Gillian have a second christian name? I have searched the records & cannot find a birth for a Gillian Walker/Troup between 1943-46?
Also do you know the of birtharea for her?
Any information that would give a starting place to search would assist.
regards
Sue

Margaret P Troup (mother Palmer) was born in Wandsworth 1925. Presumably Jean was younger and is not transcribed as yet.

Is the Marie F Troup (mother Palmer) born in Wandsworth 1912 any relation? There are no other Troup-Palmer births, and only one Troup-Palmer marriage so far transcribed, in Wandsworth 1901. Likely the marriage of Margaret and Jean's parents hasn't been transcribed yet.

In any event, Wandsworth looks like a likely spot?

I just wrote a long story and some how I, or the site lost it, so I will try a shorter version.

I have recently received a lot of info on my family tree from a couple of sources. Both distant cousins actually. One did some research for me, the other just gave me bags of data on my mother’s family.

I only use this site for find people on my mother’s side of the family. I have a program on my computer that has about 500 people in total. My father’s side of the family was relatively easy compared to my mother’s. I had only my British birth certificate to start with, along with a couple of antedotes that my mother told me. She was a war bride.

I am in the process of sorting out all my new data and entering it.

On one of the last emials from my cousin, he tells me that he is sending me a transcript of a Troup family history written my an uncle in 1983. It contains the life histories of all my aunts and uncles. As my tree had only unconfirmed data, as census data is not yet available for post 1901, this doc was the mother load.

The email went on to explain something I did not know and thus was very surprized about. My mother, had a child out of wedlock in Aug 1943. She was living with her invalid mother either in the west country, to avoid the air raids, or had just moved back to Battersea, where the family home was. She gave the child up for adoption to her older sister Jean (nee Troup) Walker, who was married and who could not have children. My mother never spoke of this. Although I suspect that the family and Gillian knew, my mother was mute about it. Living in Canada and having to contact with the family we had no way of knowing. My mother married a Canadian soldier in Sep 1945 and moved to Canada, with me in arms, in 1946. I was born just 6 weeks after they were married.

Finding Gillian is important to me. As I don’t know what she knows about her birth mother’s family. I don’t know when the adoption took place, I don’t know if she has a middle name, but I suspect so, and have asked my cousin to see if he can somehow find out. Gillian may have retired and be living anywhere or died. Using this site is just one of the things I am doing.

I never had a sister, now at 62 I do. I have to find her, or at least what happened to her. I have her life story up to the age of 40 as of 1983 but no clues after that. At that time she was single and was a career civil servant.

I can’t seem to find a site in England that will let me search for her phone number. I searched Facebook and came up with over 100 Gillian Walker’s. Some are the right age but…..

Any tips or clues will help. If you want her life story up to age 40 in 1983 and can post it here.

Bruce

That was just as I suspected you were intimating, Bruce -- that Gillian was born to your mother before marriage and given to her sister -- but I didn't want to speculate in case you weren't wanting to publish all the details. I guess the one thing you wouldn't want is for Gillian herself to stumble across this discussion, but that's unlikely to happen, and you can always delete this thread if it becomes unwanted.

What I would wonder is whether Gillian was registered under her father's surname, since she does not appear to be in the GRO under her mother's or her adoptive parents'.

Either that, or the birth date you have isn't accurate. Or possibly Gillian is the name her adoptive parents gave her, and she was registered with a different given name.

It shouldn't take too much longer for 1943ish births to be transcribed at FreeBMD

http://www.freebmd.org.uk

-- a few months likely. Then you will be able to do systematic searches by all the variables, most importantly by mother's surname Troup. It is fortunately not the most common surname in the world. At the moment, up to the early 30s, there are only a few dozen entries with that mother's surname.

There is in fact a 1948 birth in that list. So things are moving along spottily but fairly speedily.

That is probably your best shot at finding Gillian's birth. The GRO index can't be searched manually by mother's surname, since the entries are alphabetical by child's surname. With an automated database, the situation is entirely different.

I hope that helps. Patience for a very little while may just pay off.

By the way, we're already a little over the line with personal details here; the life story of a possibly living person who doesn't know it's being published would be a bit too far!

Evie: Thanks for your advice and tips. I agree with all you say. I suspect that you have been in this "business" for some time, and, I see that you have tact. I will follow your advice.

I just received a message from a Jean Brown, who included in the note, a listing of all the Gillian Walkers in the electoral registry. There are a lot of Gillian's but if I delete the Mrs's and the places not in and around London the list will be quite a lot shorter but still too long. Perhaps I could send a tactful letter to each person. I will see how it works out.

I appreciate your reponse, thanks again
Bruce

Jean's a treasure. You should find there are age categories associated with the names on the electoral list, too. If they aren't included in what Jean gave you, you can check directly on the list to see whether they're there. It might be a good idea to rule out the ones obviously the wrong age first. Or Jean may have given you only the ones in the appropriate categories (which, for 2002 onward, would straddle the 60-64 and 65+ category).

You can check directly at www.192.com

Just use the name Gillian Walker and the post code for a name on the list to search, and see whether there is an age category for the entry. (You can do that free of charge. As long as you guess any search term correctly, e.g. the post code, 192.com will show that term in the result.)

Hopefully, FreeBMD will move along and catch up to what you need quickly, if there is no luck there. Accurate birth details could help.

Evie: Thanks again. I will take your advice. I have pared down the list and am google-ing the addresses to find the ones closest to London. The list includes a middle initial. I don't have one for Gillian so I could eliminate those one's too that do, or perhaps include the ones with an "M" for Margaret or a "P" for Philomena. My mother went by "Phil". Your age category suggestion is a good one. I will follow up on that one.

Jean Brown is also Jean Bielby as the notification was under Biebly but the note to me was from Brown.

Jean must have seen our conversation. It was very kind of her. I responded to her message and thanked her.

Thank you again. You're a sweety.

Bruce

I have narrowed my Gillian Walker electoral list down to two possibilities. The phone number for one is in the London area and is the number for a Magic Lady, a child's entertainer and for an insurance company called Synergy. I doubt if this is my Gillian but who knows.

The other is for house in a village near Bristol. From what I know, Gillian worked as a Civil Servant for many years in Bristol. I called the number and was told by an automated operator that the number was no longer in service.

If I gave you the specifics of the two possibilities could you determine if it is her? Or at least find me a new phone number for the second Gill?

I am now taking another tact. I am trying to find some more first cousins living in England that might know something about her. I have come into some family info that might help me find them.

I am also in the process of importing my 600 person family tree into Genes Reunited. That might stir up a few things too, especially the the notes that are included and auto hot matches that this site has.

Finding living people is harder that finding people long since gone.

Bruce

Hi Bruce -- I think you think I'm the Magic Lady. ;)

For finding a new phone number, all I could do is what you can do -- look in the directory on line.

http://www.thephonebook.bt.com/publisha.content/en/search/residential/advanced.publisha

There are 15 G Walkers in/near Bristol.

There's a Gillian M Walker in Bristol at 192.com, also shown in the BT listings. However, 192.com gives two different phone numbers for the same name and address, and shows two entries for that name on the 2008-2009 electoral roll (both a little young) that don't match either address from the phone listings.

-- edit -- sorry, 192.com does show her on the electoral roll at that post code in 2002-2007, with another occupant in the household. Searching for that occupant with that post code, it also only shows her (aged 17-20) in 2002-2007, and nowhere else in 2008-2009. A person by that name married James Tuff in 2005. They are on the electoral roll 2008-2009 in Bristol. There does not seem to be a corresponding telephone listing. Again, you could buy credits to get the address info at 192.com. >> A person by that name was born in Bristol in 1989, mother's surname Walker.

Have you yet determined whether your Gillian had a middle name/initial and what it is?

Working on low-speed as I am since my ISP fried my modem this week, I was going to go check the image. But Ancestry appears to be acting up and won't let me do the search to find a link to the image.

The only other thing I would suggest is writing to the address for the out of service telephone number in the hope that the post is being forwarded if that person has moved. I'll bet you thought of that!

I have pm'd you Bruce with a possible birth for Gillian. Annie