Genealogy Chat

Hi
Does anyone have any tips for searching for common names? I have done a lot on my side of the family but it was an unusual name. My husband has a common name and knows very little about his father. All he knows is that his father came from the Bishop Auckland, Durham area. He remembers visiting relatives there and some were in a town others in a village.
His father's name is John Price (1912) and I have his marriage certificate showing that his father was also called John Price!!

Any help gratefully received!

Pat

Hi Patricia, I don't envy you, I've had lots of the same in my tree and it's just hard work!! The best you can do is gather as much info as poss like other siblings names, adresses if you know any, family occupations etc etc and just try to narrow it down. There's no other way, sorry!

Hello Patricia,

I have the same problem, looking for a Robert Roberts in the Liverpool area !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Needle, haystack comes to mind. BUT, I will not let it beat me.

Kathlyn

Pat,
Do you have the birth certificate for John Price (1912)?

There is this possibility:
Dec 1912
Price John Wallace Auckland 10a 452


There is also this marriage, which could be a possibility?
Jun 1910
Evans John Wallace O S. Shields 10a 1353
>>>>>PRICE John S. Shields 10a 1353
STEPHENSON Elizabeth Alice S Shields 10a 1353
>>>>>WALLACE Sarah Jane S.Shields 10a 1353

Of course if he wasnt born in Bishop Auckland, there are a lot of other possibilities in the Durham area!

Is the address for John Price from his marriage certificate of any use? You could try looking that up on the 1911 census...perhaps it had been the family home for many years?

Or what about the witnesses, could they be siblings or other relatives of John Price?

What is John Price Seniors occupation listed as on the marriage certificate? Perhaps this could be used to trace him on the 1911 or 1901 census?

Gem

Thank you all so much!
On John Price (1912) 's M Cert his address is next door to his new wife. We think that he had probably come to Dagenham in Essex, to work at Fords, from Durham and was probably a lodger next door to Rosetta Ann Briscoe whom he married in 1943.

His father John was a Coal Miner but I don't know how to search for occupation in a census.

I will check out that Birth and Marriage though - they do look promising. Trouble is how do I know it is HIM?

Thanks again

Pat

Do you know the complete date of birth / date of death? Narrowing the options down to a quarter might help.

Did John Price junior have an older sibling that you know of?

John Price 1912 died when my husband was nine. All known relatives are dead now. All we have to go on is that my husband was told his father was from Durham and he remembers Bishop Auckland being mentioned. The death was in hospital and probably Romford, Essex or maybe East London. How will the death certificate help?

I have his marriage cert and it says he was 30 in 1943, a machinist in the motor trade, his father was John. The witnesses are from his wife's side.

I have sent off for those certificates mentioned to see what comes of them.

Thanks for the 1911 info. I will pay some more credits and have a look.

Right - I have found a family on the 1911 census that looks like the family of the birth records given by gemerallTL.

They are named Wallace and the boarder is called John Patrick Price and his wife is Sarah Jane. They have a 5 month old child called William. John Patrick is a miner, which fits, and they live in Spennymoor which rings bells with my husband from when he visited as a child!!

It would fit that our John was the next child born in 1912.

Is this worth getting excited about??

Hi Pat,

When I asked about the death, it was so we could look him up in the death indexes. If it's recent enough, the date of birth is given in the index too. As we don't know how old your husband is, a year would be more helpful than telling us he was 9 ! lol

Is the middle name Patrick on the marriage cert? If it is, then I'd get excited. If not, I wouldn't be quite so sure.

Janice

Whoops!
John Price c1912
Can't find death certificate yet but think it is around 1956 and Romford or London.
Marriage certificate gives him as 30 in 1943.
Machinist in the Motor Trade.
Father given as John Price, Coal Miner.

Family knowledge is very limited but is that they come from Durham. Certainly lived there in the 1950's. Bishop Auckland is possible and Spennymoor seems a familiar name
John Price 1912 possibly had a younger brother Tom.

Thank you so much for helping

Pat

Sorry - no middle name on Marriage Cert.

I have now found a Christopher Price 1917 Sedgefield with mother's maiden name Wallace. My husband remembers having a cousin called Christopher and one called John so they seem to be family names.

There's a John Price death (age 44) first quarter of 1957 registered in Hackney reg district. Is this him? Nothing in 56 or 55.

Thanks Janice. I found him too but my husband seems to think his father was in hospital in Hornchurch Essex when he died. As I have said he was only nine years old so he may not have really known the full details.
We used to live in that area and as far as I know there was no hospital in Hornchurch. There was one nearby in Romford which I have searched for and not found anything.
He died of a brain tumour and may have needed specialist care in another area. He lived in Dagenham Essex at the time of death.
If I send for the death certificate for Hackney how will I know it is the right person??
Pat

Thera are always clues, look at informant could be wife or child of deceased. the cause of death if it says hit by car unlikely to be your ancestor. the certs are full of info once you get used to reading them.

Hi all
I now have John Price 1912 death certificate. It was registered in Hackney as he entered a hospice there it seems.
It doesn't give dob just his age in Feb 1957 as 44. Cause of death is what is already known so we are happy it is him.
I now have - a birth cert of John Price 14 Oct 1912 in Spennymoor, Durham. Mother's maiden name Sarah Jane Wallace.
A death cert as above.
A marriage cert showing John Price 1912 marrying mil with a father named as John Price a coal miner.
The 1911 census shows John Patrick Price married for one year to Sarah Jane born 1884, (lodging with a family called Wallace) with a son William 1910.
A marriage cert 1910 showing John Price (no middle name) marrying Sarah Jane Wallace age 21 (did she lie?) in Durham.
Is all this enough to be to be excited about?

Also on the 1911 census I have John Patrick Price married one year to Sarah Jane with a son William born 1910. Further births to this couple followed including John 1912 and a Thomas. My husband remembers there being an uncle Thomas his father's younger brother.

What does anyone else think?

I think you would need to buy this Thomas' birth certificate to be sure.

Suzanne

Hi Pat

Your logic seems fine to me, you are doing a good job it seems.

We can none of us be certain that our parents didn't just drag in the milkman and produce a child. Scuse my crudeness. The alternative is to dig up all the deceased and perform DNA tests on them. That isn't feasible, so we go on what records and evidence that we can. But a death cert with the cause of death that you knew about seems reasonable. Then a record in 1911 for a reasonably accurate family seems good.

You are faced with a husband like me! The spur for my hobby was his comment about 4 years ago "My dad used to support Preston North End Football Club" and I said "I never knew that. Did he go to matches?" Oh, no he just followed their success on the telly. I said "Why did he support a Preston team when he came from Macclesfield, Cheshire?". Answer "I have no idea". So I did a bit of family history research, and it took me no time at all to discover that his paternal grandfather came from Preston.

Then followed the asides. I have found a great uncle called Walter. Oh, yes I remember the mention of Walter, he died in WW1. Found. I have found a great uncle called James,. Oh Yes, Jim, and Florrie, they lived down the lane. Wish he had got his brain in gear earlier, but we got there.

Your research sounds right. Good luck with it.

Margaret

Hi Patricia,

Probably a bit late in the day, but your husbands memories of his Father's hospitalisation may be fairly accurate. There was and still is a hospital in Hornchurch, Essex called St Georges. It is an old peoples hospital but was regularly used by locals who feared admitance to Oldchurch hospital, Romford due to its previous existance as a workhouse. It is likely that he was referred from there to the Homerton for specialist treatment and then onto Hackney hospice (now St Josephs). I'm not obsessed with medical treament by the way but my mother works at St Georges lol.

http://www.durhamrecordsonline.com/