My grandmother and Somerset House 1958

My maternal grandmother and -father lived with my family for a time in the late 1950s and one day when on school holidays, she started to tell me about her ancestors. She had an amazing memory and related things vividly, so at the age of 16 I started to jot things down and soon had an accumulation of scraps of paper and roughly-sketched family trees.

My paternal grandparents had died a few years previous to this, but my father was able to tell me some things about his family. I wrote to his older brother who encouraged me by sending a letter packed with reminiscences of their lives as boys in Wiltshire.

I decided to try first to get my paternal grandfather's birth certificate. I knew I had to go to London to make the search. A train journey to St Pancras and then on to Hornchurch for an RAF interview seemed a good opportunity.

On the way back I got off at Strand Tube station, dashed along to Somerset House and somewhat overawed, plunged into the heavy volumes of indexes which now we can so easily access online. I found the reference and clutching my scribbled notes, ran back down the Strand to the station, but missed the train to Nottingham at St P's - never mind, there was another one soon after.

I then saved up the 5 bob for the certificate, wrote to Somerset House, and got the precious document 10 days later or so.

That's how I started.

 

There's nothing quite like getting that certificate/pdf in the mail/email. So satisfying.

 

Yes, when I finally received my Dad's correct registration it was great. I had tried three previous times, unfortunately using the (possibly incorrect) surname he used here in Canada and of course, none were correct. It was Peter - thank you so much Peter - who told me that illegitimate children were registered with their mother's name. When I received the correct one, even with the father's name unknown, I knew I was on the right track, even though it now appears that part of the given name she used was also not correct. (it seems Grandma was a bit of a prevaricator)

 

Even more satisfying when you've ordered two or three and they haven't been correct - felt that satisfaction when I discovered the correct birth record for one of my great-great grandmothers, as it gave me her mother's maiden name. (Didn't really help though... she's a Jenkins in Wales, who married a William Williams...)