Genealogy Chat

I have man in my family tree who I am REALLy struggling with! His name is Guy Richard / Guillaume BEVIERE (depends which cert you look at!). Anyhow he has escaped 1891 and 1901 census, I have tried changing the spelling of his names(s), although I have no proof he was in the country then. He married a girl from Manchester and have the certs from then on, but I don't know how to find his birth certificate, have lloked hard for this too but am facing a brickwall .... .... is there an "easy" way of finding this in Europe? I know the year he would have been born, I know his father's name, I know he had a company in manchester and I know he married 5 time and never divorced ..... but where was he born!!! HELP!?!? Jeni

Needle and haystack come to mind! But you have some clues here if you think he might have been born outside the UK. Guy (pronounced differently from the English) can be short for Guillaume and both are French. BEVIERE is also a French surname. So you would probably want to start your search in France and/or the French part of Belgium. If you put "French France birth records" in your search engine you'll get loads of good sites. For Belgium put Wallonia so you don't get the Flemish records.

Thanks Angela! Have found some great places, unfortunately I do not know the place he was ... I do not even know for sure it was France! One of Guy's kids went to live with a relative of guys, and he never once was in France, only Netherlands and Germany. If the family was French why did he not go there!? However on any search the spelling of the name does always take me to France .... tiny needle in a massive haystack!!!! Thank for your advice though! Jeni

PS; WOuld there be any records I could search of him coming into the country?

Jennifer Someone did put a site on here that might help - unfortunately I was going to look later and add it to my favourites - fatal mistake! However it was something like "cominghere". Maybe putting this into a search might bring it up or perhaps someone else can remember what it was.

I think the site you are refering to is moving here - http://www(.)movinghere(.)org(.)uk/ but I don't think that will help in this case because this site focuses particularly on Caribbean, Irish, Jewish and South Asian migration.

Jennifer, I also meant to say something about the records of him coming in to the country. This is tricky as until fairly recently there are no official lists of immigration into the UK. I am still trying to find out when my ggg grandparents came from Germany. The best bet would be shipping list but I have decided not to try that until I have some sort of window when they arrived. I know they were here before 1871 but since the shipping records are not searchable this would take me a long time. Do you have his father's name from a marriage certificate, does that give you any clues??

I do have his father's name, deceased on his first marriage certificate, however it is Henri. There is some recollection also that his mum's name, MAY HAVE BEEN Cohen. Now this more of a German name, maybe it was her relatives that Guillaume's child went to live with ... which doesn't help! I know he had a business in Manchester and was a Theatrical agent for Eugene Sandow, apparantly some kind of strong man .... it was thought that caused him to travel alot!

I believe that Guillaume is the french for William. I have found circumstantial evidence that Guillaume is sometimes recorded as William. Researching my own family there appears to be some documents which are recorded under original names and some under English names.

Found this on Google: http://www(.)sandowmuseum(.)com/page2(.)html shows a book for sale about his life - might your ancestor have had a mention? Jan.

Also found he (Eugene) was born in 1867 in Konigsberg, Prussia. Died October 1925. Jan

Thanks Jan, I wonder where I can go from there ..... wonder if Prussia has any Bevieres!?!? Jeni