Genealogy Chat

hi there, hoping some nice kind person can help me out. i need a quick look up doing on findmypast or familyrelative sites, as i only need the one bit of info seems pointless subscribing. details are as follows:- john e owen born 1917 in forden, montgomeryshire, wales to mum maiden name foulkes lived in welshpool served ww2 in RAF was shot down unknown location approx date of death 1941, as was due to marry gran in aug 1941 and was killed before they could get married. dad was born in dec 41. cant think of anything else to tell you, only that this is all i know. keen to find more details for my dad on the father he never knew and grandad is the only brick wall ive got. thanks in anticipation.

Karina You have already opened a thread on this earlier this morning. It's less confusing if it's confined to one thread. Perhaps you could respond to the point I made about the chap from Welshpool on the CWGC site. As I said, that seems quite a coincidence. Could you confirm that you are completely certain that that is not him? Someone else has pointed out that that casualty was married at the time of his death, but are you completely certain about all your facts, dates etc? Denis

hi there, thanks for getting back to me. didnt know i could ask for look ups before so thought i had to add new thread. have deleted the other. with regards to the facts, yes they are all correct. the one on the CG site cant be him as it states that h was already married, and he had a wedding planned for aug 1941 to my gran, so unless he was planning on bigamy i doubt that its him. somebody had told me that the CG site doesnt hold all the deaths hence my request for look elsewhere. no worries if cant help me ill keep plodding on. thanks again

Karina The CWGC site does hold all the deaths, or at least that is the intention. Naturally any list contain errors and some names are missed, but for a WW2 RAF casualty that is extremely unlikely. In your second thread you added the initial of the second forename, E. On the CWGC list there is a John Elwyn Owen died in 1943. Is that him? Denis

hi dennis ii thought i had struck lucky with that one aswell, but he died in 1943, and according to grans info, he defo died bdefore my dad was born. so that was before 1941. oh well looks as if this brick wall not going anywhere. ill keep digging thanks again

Does your dad's birth certificate say that his father was deceased? Sam x

Karina I have checked findmypast for you, There is only one John E RAF death. He is the same 1943 casualty as appears in the CWGC database. I take it someone in your family must know what the E stands for? That's a sensible question that Sam poses. Denis

yes my dads birth cert says that father deceased, but is this poss if they werent married?. take it that it not the same back then as is now in that father has to be present to be named? all very confusing. dad says that his mum told him they were due to be married prior to his birth, so he would have had to have died before aug 41. thanks guys

denis, the only family member remaining is my father who uon his birth, was given to the grandparents and his mum moved to london to get work. gran now dead, so literally only my dad who remaining, and he doesnt know much more than i do cos he didnt keep in touch with his mum. this gonna be a blank forever i feel.... thanks anyway

I still feel that the one in Welshpool who was married could be the one. Age, location etc fits. Despite being married all sorts of promises were made during the war as I know because it happened to my aunt. She became engaged to an RAF chap (Bert) whilst he was based in Hampshire. One day he didn't show up. Just disappeared from her life. A few years later she married someone else. In 1994 out of the blue my mother had a phone call from Bert who had traced my family and was wondering if my aunt was still alive. After giving him a piece of her mind at the way he had treated her sister, he did confess that he was married with a child at the same time he had become engaged to my aunt. He had felt guilty all those years at what he had done to her and wanted to off load his guilt before he died. Anyway, not long after that he did die. Julie

wow julie thats a tale and a half. i know that common sense says that yes is probably the one, but just doesnt seem to fit with everything ive been told. they had apparently planned the wedding and everything... extreme lengths to go to for leg over.. hehe. anyway am gonna research this route, see what i can find out. can i just ask tho in your experience are any deaths ever left off the register? and would i see any different lists on the other sites? just trying to see if it would be worth my while paying to subscribe just in case there are more on those sites. thanks again for your time and they do say that what goes around comes around. defo in berts case!!!! karina

Karina The record on findmypast will be no different from anywhere else. In other words the J E Owen listed there is the only one who died in the RAF in WW2. I suggest your next step might be to obtain a copy of his birth certificate to establish what the second forename was. Hope that helps. Denis

Maybe he just never came back and she heard he'd been shot down - sort of twisting the truth just a little ? (dont forget , illigitimacy was quite frowned upon )...and of course , your dad only has her word on the fact that he was going to marry her, that August. He was gone, so who would have known that her story wasnt true?

thanks scarlet, that was exactly what i was starting to think. the bloody rogue. bet you he didnt die and was living it up till he met his maker properly. little sod. anyway thanks for voicing what i was thinking. cheers karina

Karina I have been doing a bit of digging on this one. This resulted in me receiving the following: Hi John Elwyn Owen would have been my uncle I have lot of information about his RAF career. Please pass my email details on to the Genes Reunited contact Thanks James I mentioned to this chap about the Welsh background, Welshpool etc and he seems to think there is some connection. I'll pm the email details to you. Fingers crossed, Denis

thanks denis that will be great. and thank you for doing some digging. above an beyond call of duty. fingers crossed. thanks again karina