Canvey Islands Flood 1953

[garrypaulbrooks]

One of my late mother's relatives, I think an aunt, was drowned in the Canvey Islands Flood 1953. Trying to find who is was on Ancestry.com is like looking for a needle in a haystack, if I could find a complete list of the people who died in these floos (59 in total, I think) it would be very helpful. I've found one partial list of 24 on the web, but nothing else. Could anyone help?

[BC Wench]

From Canvey Island Archives web site

https://www.canveyisland.org/history-2/ ... heir-lives

[garrypaulbrooks]

Thanks you!

None of these have names that indicate obvious links with my mother's family but I will keep digging!

[grangers14]

Who is the person you are looking for?
There may be things in newspaper?
Or perhaps they had a married surname?

[garrypaulbrooks]

Problem is I don't know my relative's name.

My long-deceased mother told me & my sister (several times) that one of her relatives – possibly an aunt – died in the terrible Canvey Island Floods in 1953. My mother was devasted, she was very fond of her; indeed, my parents had their honeymoon at the aunt's bungalow in Canvey Island in 1947!

The only hard facts I have about my deceased relative are:

– She lived in a bungalow on Canvey Island.
- She died in the 1953 floods

Additionally:

- I think the bungalow was quite close to the sea wall as my mother (and mum's sister) told me that her decease relative had said for years that the sea walls weren't strong enough and needed rebuilding
– She was older than my mother, who was born in 1926, and probably married.
– Her maiden name was probably one of Moore, Garner, Meadows, Sheppard & Carr

I've looked at my mother's tree on Ancestry.com, but can't find any female who died in 1953. There are some females with no known death date, but none of them have forenames in the list of the dead of the 1953 floods.

As you say, it's probable my relative used a married name, but it's also possible that she didn't use her given first name; I've been surprise how many of my ancestors were known by one of their middle names or used a diminutive/variant on their given first name (e.g. "Fanny" or "Fannie" for "Frances")

Posting on this board is a long shot - someone with Canvey connections might have some idea. But I also plan to investigate my family tree further to:

- identify any missing relatives (I've stumbled across a few in the last month)
- Find dates of death of female relatives of my mothe where I don't have them (I've already tried, without success, but need to look at other sources)
- for female relatives of my mother with no identified spouse, find if they were ever married and if so, the husband's surname

I suspect this one will take a while......

[SRD]

It's quite a long shot and will require a lot of checking but you know an approximate age of the woman, the date of the floods, the registration district is Castle Point, you could go through the registered female deaths winnowing out the unlikely ones then investigating the possibles.