Find Living Relatives

I believe you are right what I meant by a connection to the church is that on Mums adoption order it states Murials address as Stoneleigh and just maybe she was a welfare officer working for them as I know that adoptions were also arranged through churches , the other thing on Mums adoption order was an address given as Farnhamhouse Farnham , the only Farnham house back in 1945 was also part of the Willey estate :-)

the thing is that if this Muriel Elizabeth Hall is the right one ... and I don't see how she could not be :-) ... she has no connection with any vicarage

she was the daughter of a farm couple and in 1939 was living with her widowed mother in Farnham ... and died in the reg district that covers Farnham and Guildford

in 1911 the family's address was Willey Mill
this is the google streetview showing Willey Mill House in Farnham
http://tinyurl.com/nclz4up

what you might do is pay to look at the full record for her in 1939 which would give an actual address in Farnham that year and show Ms Hall's occupation

http://www.findmypast.co.uk/1939register
search for Elizabeth Hall dob 1910, Farnham U.D.

you might also get her death certificate

this is a pretty circuitous route for info, but if it led to finding her employer it could be valuable info

Jooniecloonie
I have far from discounted the Muriel Hall you mention :-) my plan is to contact her nephew and also speak to the reverend at the Church who may (hopefully) will perhaps be able to confirm on weather or not Stoneleigh was indeed a house/Vicarage and also perhaps have old church records with her name (as I know the church my family attended when I was a child have records of my Parents marriage and mine and my brother's baptism etc

I don't really understand why we are discounting the Muriel Elizabeth Hall whose details I identified

sorry, I forgot to post her birth, so I'll recap

> single, aged 35 in 1945
Births Sep 1910
HALL Muriel E Farnham 2a 156

> 1911 with parents in Farnham
Thomas Hall 49 farmer and miller
Edith Hall 40
(note mother's age when Muriel was born)
Muriel Elizabeth Hall 9m
Winifred Beatrice Hall 15
Bertha Pinnells 22 servant

> 1939 register in Guildford, unmarried youngest child caring for elderly mother
Elizabeth M (Muriel) Hall 1910
Edith Hall 1869
(she seems to have gone by her middle name)

> died in reg dist where Susan was born
Name: Muriel Elizabeth Hall
Birth Date: 9 Jun 1910
Date of Registration: Dec 1969
Age at Death: 59
Registration district: Surrey South Western

> mother had died in Surrey SW in 1957
Name: Edith Hall
Birth Date: abt 1869
Date of Registration: Dec 1957
Age at Death: 88
Registration district: Surrey South Western

> father's death
Deaths Mar 1932
Hall Thomas 72 Farnham 2a 286


Ms Hall's address in the adoption proceedings was, from the opening post here:
Stoneleigh, Mount herion [Hermon] Road, Woking, Surrey

Stoneleigh, Mount Hermon Road, Woking, United Kingdom
is a location in England recognized by google maps, which shows a residential area consisting of modern (i.e. 20th century) terraced houses
(but I'm not really good with mid-20th century housing ... would those houses have been built after 1945?)

this link will take you there
http://tinyurl.com/jspfub5

here is an 1888 architectural drawing of a new house on "Mount Hermon Estate" Woking
http://archiseek.com/2010/1888-new-house-mount-hermon-estate-woking-surrey/

http://wokinghistory.org/onewebmedia/150710.pdf
says the former farm land of Mount Hermon was sold off for development in the late 19th century, and has an early photograph of Mount Hermon Road

http://www.woking.gov.uk/planning/listedbuildings/whichbuildingsarelisted/wwwwokinggovukplanningheritage.pdf
MOUNT HERMON
This area of land formerly known as the Mount Hermon Estate and the York Estate was developed at the turn of the Century following the sale of the 136 acre Cross Lanes Farm in 1883. It was probably the most significant development in Woking south of the railway line following the completion of the station in 1838 and together with the Hill View Estate on the other side of the Guildford Road it formed the southern approach to the town.


however ... looking in the 1911 census, I see numerous households on Mount Hermon Road (with numerous servants) identified by what seem to be house names ... Northaw Lodge, Southwold, Lynwood, Orietton, Edenmore ... so it does seem possible that this was a house


and then I offered suggestions for contacting that Ms Hall's family
. the member of this site is likely distantly related but may know the family
. Ms Hall's elderly nephew is on the current electoral roll

Thank you Kay i will chase this lead up tomorrow , im not 100% but i think i have tried this before as the address seems to ring a bell but i have so many prices of paper andnotepads etc at the moment ccan't confirm if I have , I will keep you posted

Hi Autumn leaves ,
Sadly I have tried every avenue to find Mums File (or so i thought up until now) i got in contact with the custodians of the court for Farnham after both social servicez and the court got back to me saying thorough trace done but nothing found due to reading stories on different adoption sights saying that some areas are rather blase about adoptions so long ago(to much hard work for them) but sadly they also confirmed that this was the case as they had the emails etc i had sent attached to the emails that had been sent by S.S and the Court! :-(

Diane,
Have a read of this post on here- think you may find it useful.

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/general_chat/thread/1351592

Best wishes

Muriel Hall was in some official position to be legal guardian as even private adoptions a child was appointed one, for legal reasons as until formal adoption took place the child didnt belong to anyone as the mother had already signed and given up any rights,,,,,,,,,, .it could have been a doctor,solicitor or person of a position and they usually wasnt young people,
A welfare officer was my OH legal ad litem guardian ,perhaps Ms Hall was one.?

Private adoptions were made iillegal in UK in only 1983.


The Children's Society
Edward Rudolf House
Margery St.
London
WC1X 0JL

Telephone: 020 7841 4400

This is the CofE,,,,,who have their own database and are very helpful.


Also at the time 1945 a single young woman would have found it hard to get a room or rent anywhere,so I would say at least one of the addresses was a place where it was an arrangement for a time till the baby was born and usually stayed there or somewhere else for at least 4/6 weeks afterwards.

Have you actually seen the PO archived records in London as they do give full date of births/age etc in their records of employees.

Robert Noble and wife Florence 1911 in South Croydon and not had children Robert is a Church of England Clergyman at a vicarage ,cant see any connection to Muriel Hall,

Thank you both again, as you have said perhaps Stoneleigh was a Vicarage, this may be highly possible as there is a Church on that road called St Mary of Bethany (DIocese of Guildford) this would explain why in the past ive not been able to find this address so just perhaps Mums adoption was arranged through them , my Grandparents were avid church goers ,I will call the Rev tomorrow as perhaps he may be able to shed some light !??

I just realised that when my firefox crashed a little while ago this did not get posted

.......................

just messing around some more ...

the Ethel M B that Kay noted born Farnham 1911 could be interesting
... only birth with those parents' surnames (but she could have been the last child with others born before 1911 when mother's surname is not indexed)

there is no Roberts marriage to a woman with the surname of that mother (second marriage? not married?)

but there was only one Ethel Roberts with those middle initials (other than Ethel Mary B born 1889 Bethnal Green) and the name matches a marriage in 1936 in Ashton under Lyne

I think from googling that Stoneleigh is really an area name rather than a residence

... ask google maps for
Stoneleigh, Mount Hermon Road, Woking

and it will put you down at 20 Mount Hermon Road, a row of terrace houses on a street of terrace houses

Kay have you found a marriage of a Muriel E to a Hall that would fit?

you don't think the Muriel Elizabeth Hall I posted fits rather well?

From Britishnewspapers,
22 Feb 1935,
The Rev (Robert )Noble Fergusson Phillips of "Stoneleigh" Mount Hermon Road Woking who died 25th Dec last,,left £44-388-15s -10d,,,,,,,,,he was late of the Vicarage in Devon,he bequeathed money to church/religion.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder if "Stoneleigh" was ever a vicarage and Muriel Hall a vicars wife,,,,,,,,,if the adoption was done via church based agency then any paperwork may still be held with them,especially CofE.

if you are interested in trying the DNA route, Family Tree DNA has a sale on until the end of this month

https://www.familytreedna.com/products.aspx

the 'learn more' page doesn't seem to tell very much

https://www.familytreedna.com/family-finder-compare.aspx

I have not done this testing myself but am thinking about trying it, to try to narrow the time frame for a match I have for my maternal grandfather's male-line DNA

the benefit of the FTDNA company is that it has discussion forums where other users are very happy to help interpret any matches that are found, and how to work out what they mean

anyway the sale price is 89 USD (from the usual price of 99 USD) which is just under £60

I was editing that last post of mine while you were typing :-)

I think that is probably the guardian, who unfortunately seems to have been unmarried (so not leaving children who would know about her)

however a member of this site does have in their tree

Winifred Hall 1895 Farnham, Hampshire

and that person might be able to tell you something about Muriel

Marriages Sep 1927
Hall Winifred B Hockridge Farnham 2a 407

editing to add:

Name: Winifred B Hockridge
Birth Date: abt 1896
Date of Registration: Mar 1956
Age at Death: 60
Registration district: east Glamorgan

there were two births to that marriage in Cardiff

the person with Winifred in their tree may be related to her husband and not closely related to Winifred ...

but both of the children are easily found on the electoral roll at
http://www.freeelectoralroll.co.uk

checking with the postcodes at 192.com shows the 'G' child's listing to be current, and the 'M' child's to be to 2013 (could have gone private then) ... but both would be in their mid-80s now of course

... checking further shows the 'M' child's spouse to still be at the address now, so that child must have died since the 2013 listing

Jooniecloonie,
thank you for the information in your past 2 messages , you have explained so much to me I honestly felt like I was chasing my tail but fresh start from now , I was actually thinking about trying the DNA route as I felt that was my last option as I hadn't gotten anywhere with every other avenue I've tried in the past,I have tried finding my My Mums Guardian ad litum previously but to no avail :-(

since there was a guardian ad litem for your mum, Diane, I don't think this would have been a private adoption?

the guardian ad litem is appointed to protect the child's interests in the adoption process

usually it would be a social worker of some sort I think

I wonder whether there is any chance of identifying that person and where she worked

what document is the name of the guardian on?


I think this could be her death

Name: Muriel Elizabeth Hall
Birth Date: 9 Jun 1910
Date of Registration: Dec 1969
Age at Death: 59
Registration district: Surrey South Western

I wonder about this household on the 1939 register in Guildford

Elizabeth M (Muriel) Hall 1910
Edith Hall 1869

an unmarried woman social worker?

the Hall household in 1911 in Farnham

Thomas Hall 49 farmer and miller
Edith Hall 40
Muriel Elizabeth Hall 9m
Winifred Beatrice Hall 15
Bertha Pinnells 22 servant


it could help to find family of Muriel who might know about her work

hi diane,

I'm going to suggest a rather long and somewhat complicated process you might try that might or might not produce anything useful :-)

to have had a child in 1945, Ethel is very likely deceased now (although she could be living and in her late 80s, say)

it is quite possible that she died before 2007 (the last year the deaths index is currently available at Ancestry e.g.)

it is very likely that she was aged 17 to 27 when she had your mum (picking a 10-year range, just because Ancestry allows only +/- 1, 2, 5 or 10 years)

so this would make her born 1923 +/- 5 years, say
(edit, I'm not sure why I did the math wrong, it would be 1922 +/- 5 years to be 17 to 27 in 1945, basically, but the process is the same :-) )

and it is likely that she died after 1969 (that is when the GRO deaths index started including full middle names, as well as exact dates of birth)

so ... at Ancestry, do a search of the deaths index for
. given names ETHEL MARGARET
. year of birth 1923 +/- 5 YEARS
with 'exact search' for all

now the problem with Ancestry is that you ask for Ethel Margaret but it also gives you Margaret Ethel

so you get 836 results for deaths of women named Ethel Margaret / Margaret Ethel who were born from 1918 to 1928

fortunately, most of them were Margaret Ethel ... on the first page of 50 results, there are 17 Ethel Margarets

so out of 826 deaths, fewer than 300 were likely Ethel Margaret

most of them would have been married

so you want to see whether any of them were Roberts before they married

let's start with the first one, who happens to have died in Surrey

Name: Ethel Margaret Abnett
Birth Date: 4 Sep 1922
Date of Registration: May 1991
Age at Death: 68
Registration district: Kingston Upon Thames
Inferred County: Surrey

now we go to the marriages index and search for
. given names ETHEL M
. spouse's surname ABNETT
again using 'exact search' for all terms

there are three results: the surnames are Gordon, Wright and Withers
so Ethel Margaret Abnett was not a Roberts before she married
... unless it was her second marriage ...
but those marriages were in 1923 and 1926 - impossible - and 1949 - not likely to be a second marriage for your Ethel

next up is Ethel Margaret Adamson
the marriage search results show 12 marriages of an Ethel M to an Adamson
but 9 of them were too early to be possible
and the other 3 were not named Roberts

2 are in the 1960s so could theoretically be second marriages, but I'd suggest looking for the obvious first, an Ethel who married just once

but you can check for second marriages too
for instance, one of the 1960s marriages was a Ms Gaskell
so search for marriages of Ethel M to Gaskell
... and heh, there was one, and very possibly the same person as it is in the same place 10 years earlier ... but she was not a Roberts

fortunately the name Ethel fell out of favour not long after your grandmother was born so you will find that a lot of the marriages the searches find were too early

but if you are searching for a marriage to a more common name, say Smith, you can always specify 1955 +/- 10 years first, and maybe then 1976 +/- 10 years, to limit the results

(because Ancestry shows results in random order ... neither chronologically by year nor alphabetically by bride's surname)
(unfortunately Freebmd records only go to 1980 and are not complete in the later years anyway so a pay site is needed)

as I say this is time-consuming but not actually terribly complex once you get the hang of it

I would do the search for the deaths:

given names ETHEL MARGARET
year of birth 1923 +/- 5 YEARS
with 'exact search' for all

and copy off the ones with the names in the right order (not Margaret Ethel) into a file, like this

(name, year of birth, month of death, place of death)
Ethel Margaret Abnett 1922 May 1991 Kingston Upon Thames Surrey
Ethel Margaret Adamson 1920 Mar 1974 Basford Nottinghamshire
Ethel Margaret Andrews 1921 Feb 2003 Thanet With Dover Kent
Ethel Margaret Ashby 1923 Aug 1990 Chatham Kent

and so on
(and you can always go back to check the exact date of birth on the record if you find a possible candidate)

and then work from the list you have generated to search for marriages of Ethel M to each surname of a deceased Ethel Margaret, as I did with the examples of Abnett and Adamson ... and note any who were Roberts

and once you have completed that rather massive task, I would also check for deaths of Ethel Margarets who were born a little later, in case she was very young ... say born 1929 +/- 1 year (which would have made her 14 when she got pregnant) and 1915 +/- 2 years or even 1912 +/- 5 years, although she was unlikely to have been born in 1907 and been 38 when your mum was born

this seach will not find your Ethel if she emigrated (single or married), or is still living, or died before 1970 or after 2007, or her surname in her death record is the name of a partner she was living with but not married to

but if she married and died in England between 1970 and 2007, this search should find her (but might find more than one candidate too)


meanwhile there is always the possibility she did not marry

this is the only death of an Ethel Margaret Roberts with a year of birth that is likely for someone who had a child in 1945, and interestingly it is in Surrey

(the others are 1889, 1907, 1910)

Name: Ethel Margaret Roberts
Birth Date: 1 Jul 1923
Date of Registration: Sep 1980
Age at Death: 57
Registration district: Surrey Mid eastern
Inferred County: Surrey

if that death was of an unmarried Ms Roberts, this is the only birth that matches that birthdate

Births Sep 1923
Roberts Ethel M Allen Holywell 11b 302

but of course the odds are that the death was of a married woman
(there are 80 marriages of an Ethel M to a Roberts 1940 to 1960, five of which were in Surrey)



since the chances of identifying your Ethel any other way seem slim to nil, I would start on this search process and you should find it only takes a few hours

if you do find that one of the deceased Ethel Margarets was a Roberts before marriage, you will be able to use the date of birth on the death record to look for her birth



and then there is my standard stand-by suggestion ... DNA testing

there is an 'autosomal' test that can identify relations up to the 5th cousin degree in some cases ... it doesn't tell which parent's side a cousin is on (and unfortunately your mum does not know any family on either of her parents' sides who could test, in order to sort that out), but that is where 'traditional' genealogy and family knowledge come in, to work out what the connection is

the company I use for genealogical DNA testing is Family Tree DNA, which calls this test 'Family Finder' ... it has a very large database of people who have tested, and it notifies both sides of any matches found so they can contact each other to try to work out their relationship

of course finding a match depends completely on someone who is related having done a test, and that is a very big 'if' ... and most people currently doing it are on the other side of the ocean (people in the US searching for their British roots)

however since your mum also does not know her father, and since she was born in wartime, there is always the possibility that her father was in the US military and someone related to him might have tested



just some things to consider trying :-)

Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies
Address:
County Hall
Walton Street
Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire
HP20 1UU
Telephone:
01296 382587
Email and Web:
[email protected]

have you tried here..records have got moved about and are housed in many different areas than expected,,,,,,,,,

the 1911 also had another middle name so possibly not her........its not a rare name so unless something archived can be dug up it may not be possible to claim who she was/is.

You havnt found a link to the adoptive family I supose?

Kay :-) no not the same , just checked my piles of stuff Wyle Ash Ethel was born in 1933

Diane I dont know as it just gives name and place of registration and year 1911 ,which could be in Farnham its self or surrounding area.