The year just gone saw a number of interesting finds and puzzles solved. In terms of filling in frustrating gaps, here’s my top 3 in reverse order.
No. 3 Tracking down the birth certificate of great grandmother Amelia Osborne. While the copy of the real thing didn’t give any great insight into why the family was in Bournemouth, rather than south Somerset or the Welsh valleys, it did pretty much indicate that looking for work was the main driver.
And the reason for frustration – she had been recorded as Amelia Hosborne. Doubly frustrating seeing as I’d already spotted a sister registered with an extra H but it took a hint from an Ancestry member to crack this one.
No. 2 Working out that the woman Dad only knew as ‘Aunt Bill’ was Hilda Brock. The process: I sent off for her husband’s death certificate on the basis that this might show her as ‘informant’ with a proper name. As it happened when the certificate copy arrived her brother was in that spot instead, but this did serve to confirm what I had worked out the day before by a process of elimination.
There were only a few plausible marriage registrations for Uncle Arthur and the last address for Aunt Bill was known, so I eventually worked out what must be her death registration. Just the initial H from this reduced the marriage options to 2 with one looking the most likely and throwing up matching trees on Ancestry.
This is probably Dad’s number one result from my research, but I’ll leave my own number 1 until tomorrow.
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