Find a long lost love
Was it the summer of 1966Tips and advice on how to find a long lost love and a some tips and advice the obstacles you are likely to face along your journey.
In order for you “weigh-up” whats in store for you on your trace to find a lost love journey, we have produced this description scenario based and mirroring various events we actually encountered.
Unfortunate “Rose Tinted Glasses”
Syndrome when trying to find a lost love. We have withnesssed many of our enquirers sometimes tend to be wearing rose-tinted spectacles. Thinking just simply click on a few keys on your PC keyboard. The a quick search Facebook or similar and thats it,-job done! Yes “voila” that person is found. Well all we can say is:–if only!
This following account relates to a client request which we managed to fulfil.
Names redacted. Hi Dave. Regarding your request to find a brother and sister in adulthood. These are the entire UK births listings for Derek between 1942-46. Janet 1945 to the end of 1948. The reason I have listed them all is to be able to link up the same mother, thus ensuring we have the ones we are targeting.
Having the names of both parents and Mums maiden name also means we are looking at the right person/s all along the way. Many people think they are being helpful by quoting a place where one of them worked back in the 1970s, but unfortunately to us, that info is quite useless. Its the birth data and origins we need. Nobody from the 1970s is still likely to be working there and least likely to remeber and know whey are today. Plus HR. cannot give out any info anyway, under data parotecton.
Crucially if we find a listing of the two mother’s maiden name being the same, then of course we are 99% certain we have the right one. Especially if the births occurred in the same parish register.
Unfortunatley looking through the listings we cannot find a mutual mother’s maiden name between Janet and Derek. This is quite a heavy setback, actually. It affects our ability down the line to establish we have the marriage to the right one, as again Mothers’ maiden names are applied. The question as always-do we have the right one?
Having said that there are other issues we have to consider.
At the end of WW2, some births took place on military bases. Which muddies the waters as it usually bears no relation to where they may have been brought up or which schools they attended. These location set the strong possibility of a military environment. Such as Aldershot, and Colchester (Army). In the case of the Navy, usually, it was Portsmouth. RAF, Waddington, and various other parts of Lincolnshire where many RAF bomber command locations were sited, Just to muddy the waters even further 1944-46 some births and registrations occurred abroad many being German brides. All of these are potential situations we have to be aware of it, in order to be able to find your special lost friend. Laslty at the time of the births mum was unmarried and mums name then becomes a bit blurred.
Are you sure it was Derek and not Dennis for example?
apart from the Derek/Dennis question, from what I have seen thus far it’s tough to make a decision on which one is your Janet. I could easily focus on our Janet in 2 seconds if I had the Christian names of mum and dad. As it is I only have A.J. Lacey and there are lots of Laceys so it does not help at all. Where we have a situation like this we typically find a sibling listing from which we can then match mums maiden name to both Derek and Janet. This would be a 2-minute job. Are you sure it was Derek and not Dennis for example?
However we do often find ourselves having to work without any birth information and pick things up further down the line. Here we did have a bit of a breakthrough!! A marriage listing for a Janet xxxx Hereford, 1968. Of course, it’s far from conclusive as your Janet may by then have moved on from Hereford. But I have a good feeling about it. Hereford incidentally was once a major army SAS barracks.
What might be the best way to find the missing information
Is to peruse the electoral registers in those two districts and hopefully we can establish parents, Derek, and Janet’s full names. We would then be in a strong position to conclude the search. But….if we go down that route there would be some additional costs involved. These days some local libraries retain archive electoral rolls and instead of me having to make a personal visit they will find what I need, photocopy and send it on to me for a fee. Some libraries no longer retain electoral archive electoral rolls, and I would be directed to the county hall where they are sometimes kept. But here we may be dealing with two local libraries.
So, what I usually do if the local library cannot send photocopies (actually some libraries are not even answering the phone…Covid and all that) is to visit the British Library off Euston Road. They hold all electoral registers going back 200 years. You make an appointment and they have all registers ready and waiting. If we have to go down that route the cost would be an extra £125.00. Train fares, or congestion charges, and a day out of the office.
Anyway, that’s the end of round one Michael. I will have another go at it soon.