Burial near Reading - Bilibin

[Sloe Gin]

No, not conclusive because the Berks Burial Index is not yet complete. and in any case he is probably buried in Oxfordshire.  (Reading is close to the border with Oxfordshire.) 

What looks like his wife's death was registered in Henley and I think Kidmore End would come under Henley district.  Do let us know if you get a result from Kidmore End and if not, it might be worth checking out the parishes nearby.

[julkes]

Thank yoy, SG!

Does your source show the wife's dates? (esp. death?)

In fact, Bilibin was half-Russian. His father, also Ivan Bilibin, was an extremely well known illustrator of the Russian folk tales. He was married to an Irish lady Mary CVhambers, who came to study art in Russia. After they divorced, she returned to England with their two sons (we found another son's grave!). We would like to find her grave one day, too - but at the moment we have too little information.
Bilibin-elder died during the siege of Leningrad of starvation and was buried in the common grave of the professors of the Russian academy of Arts.

[Sloe Gin]

I looked in the GRO deaths index, and I found only 5 entries for Bilibin.  I am guessing that Alexander is the other son and Gwendoline his wife.

Mary E V Bilibin   d. Q2 1962 aged 88 Henley
Alexander Bilibin (b. 2 Feb 1903) d. 1972 Chichester
Gwendoline Bilibin (b. 13 Mar1904) d. Jan 1990 Chichester 
Ivan Bilibin (b. 26 Dec 1908) d. Aug 1993 Reading and Wokingham
Jean Mary Bilibin (b. 10 Aug 1915) d. Aug 2000 Henley

So from what you tell us, it seems quite possible that Mary, the mother, lived with Ivan (or nearby).  His address was the same from 1962 up to 1984:  Maitlands, Wood Lane, Sonning Common.  (Kidmore End was the exchange.)  So it's probably Sonning Common that you should look at (apologies, I didn't have time before to look at the full directory entry, just the index).  Perhaps Ivan was buried near his mother.

Sonning Common is also in Oxfordshire, and is not the Sonning in Berkshire.

[julkes]

Hope we are getting closer, thank you for these ideas.
I have written to Sonning Common parish.

Alexander Bilibin is buried here:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=37431436

[julkes]

Thank you thank you thank you to all!
Another mystery solved - we just got a confirmation that Bilibin and his wife were buried in Kidmore End!

Will try to pay a visit there soon and then will be back here with new requests for help...

According to some statistics, there were around 15,000 Russians  who settled in the UK after the revolution. We have some 1000+ in our database:)))

[Sloe Gin]

Good! very pleased for you.  I will keep an eye on Findagrave.

The telephone directories on Ancestry are worth consulting as a finding aid for people in the more recent past, especially of course if they had unusual or foreign surnames. But bear in mind that most people didn't have their own phone before the c1970s.

[julkes]

we do not have Ancestry access:(

We do a lot of field work - Internet search is not our strong side, that's why we come here.

It is not only about finding dead people, we got some very much alive friends...
Thank you for your help, we were looking for Bilibin for a very long time...

[Rosalinda Jones]

I know this query was 6 years ago (!) but did you ever make it to Kidmore End? I'm from Sonning Common and as I have a relative also buried at the cemetery, I've walked past Ivan's grave numerous times.

[julkes]

We love this forums! Sometimes you have to wait a few years but then the answer will pop up.
Thank you for your reply but in this case we discovered the grave a few years back.
Say Hi to Ivan next time you are there