Find Living Relatives

Hello everyone!

I am trying to locate children from my father's first marriage. His name was Frederick Peter Ward but he went by Peter or Pete. I have recently unearthed some of my father's personal papers and found his divorce decree from this marriage. Oddly, the decree has Peter as his first name.

The lady he married was named Dora Heywood, and the marriage took place on 11/11/1942 in the Register Office Rother Valley in the County of York W.R. I have listed Haywood in the subject line, as I know that the spelling of names can change or be written out incorrectly.

My father was a soldier and was serving in the occupation in Germany after the war. It appears that at this time Dora and my father lost contact and he filed for divorce in December of 1950 based on abandonment. I have no idea why this occurred or what happened to Dora or my siblings.

It is my recollection that my mother told us there were two children from this first marriage and that one was a boy the other a girl. Other than this, I have no information on them other than they must have been born between 1943 and 1947.

My sister and I are trying to find them and/or their children, simply because we never got a chance to meet them and there's just us two girls left - our brother died in 1970 at the age of 13. Both of our parents have passed.

If anyone would like to help it would be much appreciated. I have ticked the box to watch this thread & will respond as quickly as possible to notifications of replies. We live in California, so there is the time difference to consider.

Thanks in advance & let us know if you have any questions.

Dora remarried so any children might have taken the surname Strickland:

Marriages Jun 1954
Heywood Dora Strickland Whitby 1b 1625
STRICKLAND John HEYWOOD Whitby 1b 1625
STRICKLAND John WARD Whitby 1b 1625
Ward Dora Strickland Whitby 1b 1625

Rose

Do you know when Dora was born?

Rose

Looking at possible births -

if they lived in Yorkshire, there are two births in Whitby RG (EDIT: Oh yes, I see the second marriage was in Whitby):

Antony P 1944; Diane 1946


I don't see any births from Dora's second marriage.

There are 2 marriages for an Anthony P Strickland. Not seeing births for this name.

Rose

There's a possible Antony, with the second surname, living in Whitby on the current ER.

Have PM'd contact details, with advice re caution and tact.

This confirms those births:

2011:

STRICKLAND Dora On November 12th peacefully in York Hospital, Dora, aged 90 years. A dearly loved wife of Jack, a much loved mum of Tony and Diane, mother-in-law of David, loved nanna of Debbie, Darrel, Leanne and Janet also a much loved great-nanna. _ Funeral Service to be held at York Crematorium Chapel on Monday, November 28th at 11.00am. Family flowers only please, donations may be given in lieu to the R.N.L.I – a plate will be provided at the service.

Rose

Be very cautious with this. The children of a first marriage may not be too kindly disposed towards the children of a second union

Received PM of thanks from Kathleen.

Reiterated need to proceed with care.

Thank you for all comments! For some reason I did not get notifications of the comments on this thread. Will take some time to look at everything over the weekend. <3

You don't get notification of responses unless you tick 'watch this'

I keep doing that each time I visit but it won’t work :-(. Oh well I will keep checking back.

I've just clicked on it - and it says 'watch created'

Yes it does that for me as well but :-(

Hello again, wanted to post an update. Thanks to your assistance, my sister and I are happily corresponding with our older brother and sister, exchanging photos and feeling wonderful to have found each other!

We were both touched to discover our older sister had tried to find us in 1996, and came pretty darn close to it!

This is one of the most exciting times of either of our lives. Thank you all for contributing information and advice <3 <3 <3

Wonderful news, Kathleen!

Thanks for letting us know.