General Chat

In the 1930's, my Gran was married with 3 little children & a husband who wasn't very nice to her. Some 70 years plus later, just before she sadly passed away she told my Mum (her youngest daughter) that during the war, she had an affair & found herself pregnant. Nobody knows what happened to the man she had an affair with, Mum didn't ask. Grandad allowed her to have the baby but forced her to give him away to be adopted as soon as he was born and he was never to be mentioned again.

When Gran told my Mum, she cried and said never a day went by when she didn't think of him. She had carried the secret with her for so long.

My Gran was such a lovely lady, I would love to find 'Gordon' who would be in his 70's now & let him know that she was a beautiful, loving person and not someone horrible who 'dumped' him. How, for the sake of her other 3 small children, she was forced to let him go.

Knowing that time is of the essence & as Social Services said that their waiting list was over 18 months long, we joined Norcap. Mum had to join as she was next of kin, sadly we had to stop because it was so expensive.

I have his birth certificate which shows that he was born in a Salvation Army Women's Hospital, I have spoken to the archivist there who confirms that he has the adoption file but, understandably, cannot give us any information from it. How frustrating!!

There is a man out there somewhere who maybe is unaware that he was adopted and if this is the case, we would never push for him to be told but, on the other hand, if he does know then I would love to let him know how lovely his BM was.

have spoke to susan through pm thanks

I was born in 1959 and adopted in 1960 after staying with my mother for 10 months and then she was tricked into having me adopted. Through social services I did meet my mother in 1985 when pregnant with my youngest. Thats what provoked me into looking for birth family. Although she lived in Australia where shed moved to in 1970s she came over for a visit. We kept in touch for several years but because of feelings of guilt against my wonderful adopted parents we lost touch. Following death of both my adoptive parents and my family leavng home I decided to join Genes inSeptember 2008 and have now met a cousin and am in regular contact with half sister and half brother. Would still love to find Gordon Cook my father who was living and working in Carlisle in late 1950s.

To Grumpy.
n
Sue

UPDATE. Agnes C. Pow

I have now got the cert for Agnes C Pow.
It is
Agnes Cunninham Pow 18 spinster of Ladbroke Grove W.10 (London/Middlesex)
Father William Cunningham Pow (Shipwright)

married 1948

Michael Murphy 27 Bachelor of Lancaster Road W.11. (Lond/Middx)
father James Murphy (Farmer)

in the presence of
Mr. A Pow
Mr. J O'Brien.

I looked on BMD and managed to find death of
William Cunningham Pow b1934 d.1992 Ealing (London/Middx)

Does this help anyone to sort me out??
Thank you,
Sue

hi captain pugwash don't delete the thread just let it "die a natural death", people may want to come back for reference? once again thanks for starting it

Will do Captain Pugwash,
Marriag cert is already ordered.
Thank you for the original posting.
It is all a mystery to me as well.
I know that Harry Griffiths "married" !! someone else called Evelyn??
Sounds to me that he "liked women"

Hi Susan and everyone else who added to this thread. Was going to delete a few days ago, but will keep it open for a while longer. Susan if you could keep us up to date with the latest I for one would be very interested. Thanks to everyone else for adding.

Thank you Grumpy for your information.
I will send off for the marriage cert. as it seems to much of a coincidence with Agnes name and coming from Westminster.
I will let you knoe how I get on.
Sue

conundrum?????
agnes cunningham pow would link with the marriage of agnes c pow i posted earlier possibly?????? people could get away with a lot when registering births and as there was at that time a lot to hide who knows. probably were not married just pretended. IF and its a big IF they were one and the same you could get this marriage certificate to find her parentage and date and place of birth might help with emigration searches

Hi Grumpy, Capt. Pugwash and Sheila,
Did not realise that you had been looking up for me, Sorry.
I am 4 yrs older than William.
Father, Harry Griffiths and my mother divorced in 1952.
Mothers maiden name was Hosler.
On Williams b/cert it says mother Agnes Cunningham, GRIFFITHS (caps)
formerly POW.
The only reason to think that she was from abroad (Persia) was that Harry was working at an oil field at the time. He wrote and told my Mum that he had met someone else. Then mum found out that this person was pregnant. My Mum held off divorcing him straight away.
Does this help?

N

hi susan,
couple of questions please feel free not to answer.
griffiths is your fathers name?
are you older or younger than william griffiths?
your father and mother divorced c1952?
what was your mothers maiden name?
what is fathers 2nd wife's first name and surname, you say same as fathers so griffiths?
what info do you have ref emigration, country etc?

England & Wales, Birth Index: 1916-2005
about William P Griffiths
Name: William P Griffiths
Mother's Maiden Surname: Pow
Date of Registration: Apr May Jun 1951
Registration district: Paddington
Registration county: Greater London
Volume Number: 5d
Page Number: 261 (click to see others on page)

hi captain pugwash and all,

agnes c pow marriage to michael murphy.

Q3 1948 kensington vol 5c page 3373

is this what you were looking for

Hi

Really weird there appears to be nothing for Agnes Pow, are you 100% sure of her first name ?

William was born in 1951, what years have you checked for marriages ?

my husband was adopted as a 6 week old baby. Cut a long story short, his mum had a brief affair with a chap who was lodging with them, found out, too late, he was married, he moved back home without knowing she was with child. Granny, the matriach of thefamily, forbade the girls of the family to let on to the fellers about it and sent her off to "work" in Scarborough (mum and babied home), she had Neil, looked after him for 6 weeks and then was forced to give him up for adoption, he was absoloutely heartbroken. She died of cancer when he was 10 and his cousin says that in her last days she was cooing and cuddlingher baby - she was buried with a picture of her baby tucked into her arms. When we had our first he decided it was time to look for his family, with his mums blessing and help, we contacted the adoption agency and after a few months of searching our wonderful social workerlaid the groundwork and we were put in contact with her brother (there was only the 2 of them) his cousins were over the moon as they'd always known about him but couldn't look for him because of the laws around adoption. When they met it was like looking at 2 peas in a pod, just 1 a lot older. We've had a fantastic relationship with them all for over 10 years and it's like he was never away from the family, he was really sad not to get to have known his mum, we have a lovely picture of her on the wall, and his mum has one of her as well. The sad thing as well is that his uncle said if only he had been told he would have insisted that he and his wife would bring him up as their own!!
His father's side are a different matter - he has 3 half brohers, when his dad died again when Neil was much younger, 3 of his half brothers, when aproached just wanted to know what he was after and that was the end of that! His middle brother. who is lovely and his family have accepted him and although we have met them only once, we do keep in regular contact. Wen I 1st jined genes a few years ago I put Neil's natural family on, as of course one would and I got a hot match with a girl who turned ut to be his neice, it was not a pleasant experience to say the least - she refused to believe her grandad could possibly have had an affair and was quite abusive, she also demanded I take "her" family off my tree -needless to say I responded by saying you can believe what you want to and the tree stays!!! and of course I deleted her from my contacts immediately. Not wanting to cause trouble I rang his brother and told him what had happened, he said not worry and if I had ran him first he would have advised me not to contact her!! BUT on the whole the experience has been fabulous and we have 2 brilliant families now instead of one on his side, his natural and his adoptive. So good was our experience he even does some searching etc. for the adoption agency from time to time.
Carol

i was born in hemel hempstead in 1969 , i was fostered for about 9 months and then officially adopted from there on. i knew from the age of 7 about my adoption, this was all good right up until i started my own family . i began to think more about tracing my birth parents from then on . i have spent about 10 years or more trying to locate my birth parents from two names on my adoption records ,of which i had to apply for.
over the xmas holidays i recieved lots of help from people on gr trying to help me locate either of them.
i was given an address by a gr member to try , 1 month later i am now in contact with my birth father for the first time in 40 years. its very early days at the moment but things are looking good.
it was like finding a needle in a haystack.
i still cant believe it.! the lengths that the gr member went to ,to help me were imeasurable. there are some very clever reserchers on here.
steve

Hi Captain Pugwash.
I haven't found my half-brother yet.
Just a brick wall. I can't find out anything further about him.
His name is
William Paul Griffiths, born April 1951, Paddington Hospital, London.
I can't find out anything about his mother Agnes Pow.
There were Pow family on the 1951 Westminster Roles (on birth cert) but they weren't living there then.
I think that she took him abroad!! and then split from my "father".
In answer to the original posting of yours I found my 4 cousins after 50 years. It was a happy occasion and we are still in contact 5 years later.
Sue

Just bringing this back to the top, any joy in finding your half-brother Susan?