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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: dancing barefoot on Monday 05 February 18 19:00 GMT (UK)
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Hello,
I've recently found out that I may have a half sibling born in Port Talbot, Wales in 1971. My father was a 22 yo 'Long Distance Worker' from Ireland and only stayed in one place long enough to finish a job. He was in Port Talbot working on the building of the Llandarcy cooling towers when he met the mother of my possible half sibling. They were no longer seeing each other when she found out she was pregnant and he had moved on to another job in Gloucester when she told him. I'm sorry to say that he did not do the responsible thing and so that is the last he knows of the child. She was around 4-5 months when she told him and based on his memory, it would place the child's birth in Spring of 1971.
I have a name for the woman but it is a very popular name in Wales, first and last, so search results are in the hundreds. My father thinks that she had 2+ sisters and 2+ brothers and was possibly the oldest- he is unsure if there were more children in the family and he does not recall any of their names, nor does he recall the parent's names. She had ginger hair and the lads on the site called her 'Ginger' (not her name). He seems to remember that she was older than him by a year or two which would place her birth year between 1945 and 1947 and she was local to the area. They would spend their nights in the pubs near the beach and their relationship lasted approximately 3 months in 1970.
This is all the information I have at the moment. Can anyone give me an idea of where to start looking for the mother and child?
We have thought to look for the other lads who worked on the site but most of the ones my father remembers were also long distance workers and so it would be questionable whether they were around Port Talbot long enough to know what happened.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thank you.
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Hi dancing barefoot
Welcome to Rootschat ;D
I'm sorry but this forum is for finding our about our historic ancestors, not reconnecting with missing family and friends.
Please take a moment to read our guidlines for posting
http://www.rootschat.com/help/posting_guide.php
which includes links for finding people.
Please note that we also have a 'no living people' policy here so any help people can offer will only be in general terms.
Dawn
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Hi Welcome,
Not allowed to discuss possibly living persons as above, Freebmd might help, mothers maiden name same as child and correct registration district would have been West Glamorgan.
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl
Best of luck
Cathy
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If you are searching for births in West Glamorgan in the first 2 quarters of 1971 (or possibly the third?), free bmd does not show many births for e.g. Williams/Williams or Jones/Jones or Brown/Brown etc etc.
Up to you to take a gamble on the baby being born there, and how many certificates to buy to see if correct mother's name.
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Thank you All!
Your advice has gotten me further in 5 minutes than I've got in 2 months! And apologies for not adhering to the guidelines. I misunderstood it as not using identifiers such as names. Thank you for your help!
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I see Facebook has a couple of "Port Talbot Old and New" websites where members exchange memories and news. Have you thought about submitting a post asking if anyone knows your Miss X or her family?
Now that I've visited the pages and used the member search facility, I'm musing whether to join a similar Welsh group and ask if anyone is researching their family tree and has come across a McCarthy marrying a Thomas :D
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=port%20talbot%20old%20and%20new
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I see Facebook has a couple of "Port Talbot Old and New" websites where members exchange memories and news. Have you thought about submitting a post asking if anyone knows your Miss X or her family?
Now that I've visited the pages and used the member search facility, I'm musing whether to join a similar Welsh group and ask if anyone is researching their family tree and has come across a McCarthy marrying a Thomas :D
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=port%20talbot%20old%20and%20new
Thanks for this! From the FB page, we have found the son of the man who my father was travelling with when he worked in Wales/England!
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I expect it was quite uplifting to make contact with at least one person from the past.
I see from the website others have given you of the free birth, marriage, death site that there isn't a birth registration district for Port Talbot in West Glamorgan. Thus it must have come under the Registration District of either Swansea or Bridgend, which makes searching for a baby boy with the same surname as its mother a little easier than using the county search option.
The local Port Talbot Council offer copy birth certificates BUT the council is now known as Neath Port Talbot and there wasn't a 1971 registration district in Glamorgan for that official named council either. At the bottom of their webpage is an address for making enquries about adopted babies, In the event the baby was adopted I was wondering if it's possible to leave an introductory letter in the adoption file to be found by the adoptee if he ever decided to try to trace his birth parents.
https://www.npt.gov.uk/1324
"If a birth certificate is for someone who has been adopted, then the application should be made to:
Adopted Children’s Register
ONS
Smedley Hydro
Trafalgar Road
Southport
PR8 2HH
Tel: 0300 123 1837
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You can register with the GRO but it costs
https://www.gov.uk/adoption-records/the-adoption-contact-register
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We're keeping in the back of our minds that the child may very well have been put up for adoption, but we're focussing on the alternative at the moment. One problem I'm running into is that in order to apply for a cert, we need the DOB when all we have is the info provided by FreeBMD. Is there a way around this? I seem to recall reading somewhere that DOB is necessary for births within the last 50 years. Do I have this wrong? I'm also currently trying to navigate 192.com but haven't bought any credits yet because I'm uncertain what sort of info this will give me and if it will be helpful.
Thanks, again, for all you help!
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you need much more than a name and date of birth for registrations in the last 50 years.
You need the actual place of birth and the full names of the parents.
From experience I doubt whether 192.com will give you the information you are hoping to get.
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With the help and advice from the responses to my post, followed up with sheer determination and luck, we found my half sibling! The Port Talbot Old and New FB page and asking the correct people the correct questions was what led me to find the mother of the child and then also the child. We have not contacted them yet. I would never have found this FB page without the suggestion in this chat, so please accept my thanks!
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Thanks for coming back to us with your good news, which is very welcome in ordinary circumstances, but extremely welcome in this current virus lockdown climate.