Genealogy Forum UK

I'm not doing a traditional genealogy - our charity shop received a handwritten diary written by a 13 year old boy in 1941. I'm trying to find out who he is and whether he is still alive. I have his name, his birthday (the last quarter of 1927),his addresses in 1941 and the school he moved to during the year. A friend subscribes to ancestry.co.uk, and one record pops up for births in that quarter, but this gentleman's death certificate shows a different birthday.

So my question is: if he wasn't born how do I find him?

Thanks for any help.

moving to gen discussion

Oh wow what a lovely puzzle!

May be if we know names etc we might be able to help?
Jo

The birth index on Ancestry is the FreeBMD one and not the most accurate.

The recently indexed BMD on Find My Past and The Genealogist are far more accurate.

There are also records that do not show up the GRO index but are int he local county indexes.

Give us a name and year of birth and we can look through the various indexes for you.

Hi

Unless things have changed on ancestry, your friend should be able to look at the actually index images for birth registrations. Since you have the name and date of birth then if you do that you can rule out any transcription problems. If he was born in the last six weeks of the year then you should also check the first quarter of the following year as he may have been registered then.

Failing that you could try the election roles for the address (at least I think they are done by address?) and see who was listed at the house. Or you might strike lucky with an old telephone directory if you can find one at the library.

Hi
Thanks for all these - and so quickly. The name is Bernard Carey, born 26/12/27 so definitely worth looking in first quarter of 1928. That sounds hopeful. The family lived in and around Portsmouth in 1941.
Cheers

Possible births??

Name: Bernard Carey
Mother's Maiden Surname: Parkinson
Date of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar 1928
Registration district: East Stonehouse
Inferred County: Devonshire
Volume Number: 5b
Page Number: 382


Name: Bernard S Carey
Mother's Maiden Surname: Fearnley
Date of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec 1927
Registration district: North Bierley
Inferred County: Yorkshire West Riding
Volume Number: 9b
Page Number: 27


?? possible death for the one above
Bernard Stuart Carey
Birth Date: 30 Oct 1927
Date of Registration: Nov 2004
Age at Death: 77
Registration district: Leeds
Inferred County: Yorkshire
Register number: K27C
District and Subdistrict: 092/1K
Entry number: 55

Marriages Dec 1926.
Carey Edward J. Parkinson. E. Stonehouse. 5b. 700.
Fox Rosina M. Tompkins. E.Stonehouse 5b. 700.
Parkinson Ida M G. Carey. E.Stonehouse. 5b. 700.
Tompkins Alfred G. Fox. E.Stonehouse. 5b. 700.

Births Dec 1907.
PARKINSON Ida Mary G. E. Stonehouse. 5b. 243.

The East Stonehouse one looks good. The problem would be finding what happened to him.

It might be worth contacting this guy http://www.plymouthdata.info/index.htm to see if he has any ideas.

Wow - what an amazing forum. Thanks. I was going to ask my Ancestry enabled friend to look up early 1928, but here is more detail than I could have imagined.

Bernard S. is the one we found who has the wrong birthday and so I agree the one registered in January seems the best bet. We'll try and move on from there.

Cheers all.

coracleman wrote:Wow - what an amazing forum. Thanks. I was going to ask my Ancestry enabled friend to look up early 1928, but here is more detail than I could have imagined.

Bernard S. is the one we found who has the wrong birthday and so I agree the one registered in January seems the best bet. We'll try and move on from there.

Cheers all.

any other names mentioned in the diary poss family ?

is the school still there ? or any record held by the local council ?

he might be an only child of this marriage as cannot find any sibling ?

No other family names mentioned in the diary, though I'll go back and double check I think. It's all Mum and Dad. However there are grandparents in Plymouth which fits with the Devon connection. They were worried about them after a bad raid on Plymouth.

I suspect PeterD is right about his being an only child and there does not seem to be a marriage or a death recorded either.

Fascinating.

Jimmy wrote:Marriages Dec 1926.
Carey Edward J. Parkinson. E. Stonehouse. 5b. 700.
Fox Rosina M. Tompkins. E.Stonehouse 5b. 700.
Parkinson Ida M G. Carey. E.Stonehouse. 5b. 700.
Tompkins Alfred G. Fox. E.Stonehouse. 5b. 700.

Thanks to all who've been looking things up. Sorry to be ignorant, but I don't really know how to interpret these 4 lines. How does it work? I presume Edward J Carey is the groom, but why is the Parkinson name on the same line - is this who he's marrying? Ida seems to be the bride because of the name Parkinson and because you guys took the trouble to find out when she was born. So Rosina and Alfred would be the witnesses I guess, but Rosina's line starts with Fox and ends with Tompkins and Alfred's line starts with Tompkins and ends with Fox. I apologise for the rookie question and hope it doesn't offend.

On the marriage register there are normally 2 marriages per page, so the 2 I underlined are 1 marriage and the other 2 are the other marriage, they are not always next to each other on Freebmd.