RootsChat.Com
Research in Other Countries => Europe => Topic started by: linda51 on Monday 06 February 17 17:56 GMT (UK)
-
Yet another door slammed in my face in my fairly hopeless attempts to find out more about my father's death in Cameroon in 1964. As he was dual French/English and apparently socialising with French friends when the purported accident occurred, I made an approach to the French Consul in Yaounde. Letter received today basically tells me : Je vous informe que la section consulaire de l'Ambassade de France au Cameroun n'est pas en mesure d'effectuer de telles recherches. En effect, la recherche dans l'interest des familles est un service qui n'est plus rendu par l'administration francaise dupuis 2013. Je vous invite donc a adresser vos demandes a des professionels de la recherche privee.
Why, why why is it necessary to get a professional researcher? .........Anyone happen to have contact with someone who would take this up?
-
Presumably you've checked the GRO for overseas deaths (as he had dual nationality his death may have been registered with the British authorities in Cameroon).
maxD
-
Thanks, yes. I have two death certificates - one registered at the British Consul and the other a Cameroon non-native certificate. The cause of death stated on one of the certificates is "immersion".
Many years before this, in 1939, he needed to get out of occupied France and the only way he was able to do this was to join the French Army. His French Army Service record confirms this, and his service in North Africa until 1943, when the Allies won. From that time, he had no apparent involvement with the French again - but the service record shows every post-war date he went into Nigeria and/or Cameroon, as a civilian and with his family who understood he had a civilian job with no military or intellience involvement.
In 1944, he was flown into the UK and recruited by MI6.
Cameroon was a hot bed of political intrigue in 1963/64 and was being carved up by various countries. Hence my wish to confirm the nature of his death..........by hopefully obtaining an eye-witness report!
-
A tangled web! Only other thought is whether you know who he was working for at the time?
maxD
-
Yes - he was working for Pamol - a subsidiary of Unilever. His job was to set up a new branch of the company and he worked closely with another male employee. I got in touch with quite a few of the men my Dad was have worked with, but unfortunately, the one person who could have told me most was in a nursing home. All the other people told me Dad must have been with French friends.......hence my belief any accident may have been recorded by the Embassy in Younde or Victoria.
-
If you don't want to use a professional researcher, I should think your best bet would be to try and find a newspaper report of your father's death. Some French papers have archives on line for 1964, but you may have to pay. Don't know about English papers.
-
Are these papers searchable by location and/or name? If you could let me know how to find the online archives for the papers, I'd be grateful...............and if you know how I go about finding a professional researcher, preferably someone who speaks French and English..........I'd be grateful for that information too.
-
English newspapers - This guide should help.http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/newspapers/ Some libraries have access to some sites if they are subscription sites. Look for free trials or free searches which charge only if results come up.
maxD
-
Thanks Max, I'll give them a try, but I suspect French newspaper archives are more likely to carry a report.
-
Unfortunately, there don't appear to be many newspaper archives on line for the time you are interested in as far as I can see. Most stop around 1945 or are more recent...at least this is true of those I've found but there are certainly others I haven't come across. However, one notable exception is "Le Monde" which you can search here
http://www.lemonde.fr/recherche/
They may want you to pay to see complete articles. If you find anything, get back to me as my son may have a subscription (not sure if it would cover the archives though).
I would also suggest you search this site which actually sells old newspapers:
http://www.journaux-collection.com/index.php
If you find anything of interest, you can again get back to me and I will try to find the paper in a library here in France - no garantee, but it's worth a try. Checking to see what came up, I put "1964" and "Cameroun" in the search engine and an article entitled "Eight assassinations in Cameroon" was in "L'Humanité", the French Communist party newspaper dated 6 January 1964.
I will PM you regarding a researcher as long as I can find out how to do it!