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fathers name martin

Why didn’t someone simply answer the question? And tell the poster how to do lookups.....

I had my son in 1964. I would hardly class myself as an ancestor! Would be mortified to be described as such

You are so right, Erika. and I am guilty. I should have explained how to do the look-ups on FreeBMD rather than do it myself. I guess it's because we have so few requests for look-ups these days that we just jump at it.

Plus ............... . these are all still alive, presumably

Oh dear, Sylvia, I don't know what I was thinking. Of course those births that I posted are probably still living. I have deleted the post.

Luckily, malyon's info is inaccurate

A 'tree' on Ancestry (I know, seldom reliable) states that Sheila died in 2009 I can find nothing at the moment to back up that claim

Janet -
General instructions - not specifically for your present search -


to look up births on FreeBMD - assuming the births were in England or Wales, and were between Sept qr 1837 and approx 1983 (varies from place to place) -

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

Select "Births".
Enter surname of child.
Enter a likely date range.
If you know which county, or more specifically which district, the birth might have been in, select the appropriate one. If not, there's no need to select a place.

If the birth was in Sept qr 1911, or later, you can also add mother's maiden surname, which will show up in the search results.


If you find a likely birth before Sept qr 1911 (which won't show mms), you can then check on the GRO site, which shows mother's name for all births from Sept 1837 onwards. (If there's no mms shown, it means the mother was unmarried, and the child's surname is therefore also the mother's name.)

https://www.gro.gov.uk

You have to register, but it's free to use. You can only search in 5 year periods (eg - 1865 +/- 2 ). If you know the mms, it speeds up and narrows down the results, but if you don't, the results will still show mms.

Remember that names may not be spelled the way you expect, especially with older records.
On GRO site, select "Phonetically similar variations" to check for other spellings.
On FreeBMD, click "Phonetic search surnames."



The advantage of looking first at FreeBMD is that you can search in a general area - eg - Shropshire - whereas on GRO you have to either enter a specific registration district, or else not select any place, which means you get results from everywhere, and it's difficult to find the one you want.
FreeBMD also lets you set your own range of years.
You can also search without entering any surname at all, if that fits what vague info you might have, whereas you can't search GRO without entering a surname.
Once you've found a possible birth on FreeBMD, then it's easy to check on GRO, entering the exact reg district shown on FreeBMD, to find out mms.

Have now found record of the death

She had re-married in 1989

Name: Sheila Kendra
Gender: Female
Death Age: 65
Birth Date: abt 1944
Death Date: 3 Feb 2009
Burial Date: 10 Feb
Obituary Date: 7 Feb 2009

First name(s) Sheila
Last name Kendra
Death year 2009
Death date 03 Feb 2009
Probate year 2010
Probate date 25 May 2010
Registry Newcastle upon Tyne
Registry county Northumberland
Country England
Document type Grant and will

Janet has the second husband in her tree - admittedly with an incorrect birth year.

Thank you for all the replies. some of them were very helpful.