Old Family Mystery

[David Dunlop]

Hello Gentlemen and Fair Ladies.

I need some input and brainstorming ideas from our Australian and American members.

My Maternal Grandmother lived in Wigan, Lancashire England as a young girl, married there and started a family in the 1920's. Long story short, it was a tough married life. Her hubby was a very abusive drunk and in 1929 and with four little ones all under the age of five, she could not take it anymore and disappeared on the family to start another life somewhere else in England.

In the late 1930's, one of my grandmothers older sisters received an anonymous postcard style photo of my grandmother, taken at a professional studio somewhere. In the photo, she is seated with three young boys, none of whom the family recognizes. The information on the back of the photo related to the photographer had all been rubbed away.

In the early 1950's, her former husband died of brain cancer and Grandmums sisters formally asked the authorities if they could trace her. They could find nothing and suspected she had changed her name via a Deed Poll, which makes it very tough to trace her, not knowing her new name.

The family had been able to run articles in the local Wigan paper and I have done similar ones in the Daily Mail and a national British magazine! complete with the photo of Grandmum and the three boys, in hopes somebody might recognize one of them. No luck.

One last possibility is that my Grandmother may have emigrated to Australia or the United States after the war and I am wanting to find out what, if any national newspapers in those two counties would be the best candidates to contact to see if they would run the photo and story in these two countries. It's a long shot but at least we will have covered all the possibilities we can think of at this point.

David

[Little Jo]

Hi David

If your Grandmother immigrated or visited Australia she would have come by ship and there are government sites that show all arrivals into Australia by ship. this would have been easy for your grandmother because she would have been a British subject. It would be easier to check Australian records if there were names and DOB's to help. Also I take it when she left your grandfather she did not take any of the little ones with her, if she did their names and DOB's would also help. You state that there was a later photograph of her showing 3 little boys, are these from a later relationship and was anyone able to maybe get a hint of a name etc.

Cheers

Tony

[Bruce MacMillan]

PM sent David

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Hello Gentlemen and Fair Ladies.

I need some input and brainstorming ideas from our Australian and American members.

... she could not take it anymore and disappeared on the family to start another life somewhere else in England.

In the late 1930's, one of my grandmothers older sisters received an anonymous postcard style photo of my grandmother, taken at a professional studio somewhere. In the photo, she is seated with three young boys, none of whom the family recognizes. The information on the back of the photo related to the photographer had all been rubbed away.

... formally asked the authorities if they could trace her. They could find nothing and suspected she had changed her name via a Deed Poll, which makes it very tough to trace her, not knowing her new name.

...

David

If those three boys were hers by a new husband, then she would be a polygamist and in violation of whatever applicable civil statures were in effect. The first one evidently never divorced her (or knew where to serve papers, either).

[Tim Lovelock]

Here in Victoria, Australia is a regional newspaper called the 'Weekly Times' it is targeted primarily at rural (farming) readers and though does not have the subscription numbers of the larger papers such as the 'Age' or 'Hearald' it is circulated throughout the state. It does at times place articles and pictures of unidentified people for descendants such as yourself. My suggestion would be to google them and see how you go. Stranger successes have been achieved on a long shot like yours. Good luck

[Tim Lovelock]

Sorry 'Herald'.....

[Lynn Eades]

Tim, You can go into your previous posts, and edit them as you wish. You can also delete a post should you choose to do so.
(from someone who regularly fixes his errors)

[Tim Lovelock]

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

Tim, You can go into your previous posts, and edit them as you wish. You can also delete a post should you choose to do so.
(from someone who regularly fixes his errors)

Thx Lynn, lol, didn't even think of it!!! I think my surname shoul be 'Luddite!

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for the suggestions. Much appreciated. Mum's youngest sibling (a brother) passed away in Perth a couple of years ago. It would be grand if the fate of their Mum could be discovered before any of the surviving three children pass on. None of them would waste spit on their father but would dearly love to know their Mum did OK.

Best regards,

David

[Tony Wheeler]

David, have you considered seeking professional advice? I imagine there'd be experienced investigators in this field, which strikes me as not unlike family tree research. With all the data stored these days and computer searching and so forth I wonder if they can match things like DOB and narrow the field. Just a thought and you may have explored it already. Anyway good luck in your search, it would certainly be grand to solve the family mystery as you say. Cheers, Tony.

[David Dunlop]

Tony.

We have thought about hiring a researcher, but they do not come cheap. You are right, a lot of information is on line and can be very helpful. I do have concerns, however, about governments giving up control of their own archives to the private sector, for profit. The most recent census release here in Canada, by the Ancestry Group was an absolute mess when I did some research on my grandparents (fathers side of the family) who were living here in Winnipeg in the 1920's. I knew the address but could not search them out to save my soul. Ended up searching page by page for several hours through the district in which they lived and being familiar with the area, began to notice a lot of spelling mistakes for names of streets. It became very evident whoever had been hired to do the transcriptions did not have English as a first language. Very likely Spanish.

When I did finally find the census page with my relatives listed, the original document was very easy to read, but both my grandparents surnames had been misspelled, as had the street name. In fact, I found 67 spelling errors on that one page before I stopped looking. The dark side of documents for profit!

On the bright side, a wonderful MLU member in England, with much more research experience than I have yet obtained, has offered to do some digging for us and I now have some ideas for media assistance in Australia. Gotta love this site.

I am going to hold off telling Mum at the moment. She is 91 now and still hates her Father with a passion. Seems OK with her Mum, but I suspect is a little bothered as to why she just up and left her and her siblings behind. My grandfather was so enraged by his wife leaving, and was convinced her family knew where she was hiding, he put the four kids into two orphanages and refused to tell the family where they were until they handed over his wife. Took four years for the family to discover the kids and two aunts finally took them in. Interesting life!

Cheers for now, Tony.

David