RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Yorkshire (East Riding & York) => Topic started by: Lubana on Monday 15 April 19 00:55 BST (UK)
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Hi
I'm searching for my biological father. Most of you are too young to qualify, so relax. :) I only very recently learned from a newly-found British cousin, that my father probably lived in Kingston upon Hull. The possible names involved are Brooker, Richardson and Berry. The man had to have found himself in Wesel, Germany near the end of or right after WWII. That's where my mother lived and where I was born. The questions I have even my cousin cannot answer. Did a John Robert Richardson of Hull have any sons that were born about 1916? Did anyone know Lawrence Berry of Hull and know what branch of the service he was in [if any] during WWII?
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Hi Lubana and welcome to Rootschat, we are not allowed to name people who may be living due to privacy rules...you may want to look here at these free sites:
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/search
http://www.yorkshirebmd.org.uk/
You can search for living people here:
https://www.GenesReunited.co.uk/home/index
https://www.familysearch.org/en/
Good Luck!
Carol
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Welcome from me too Lubana.
Have you considered taking a DNA test, or is that how you found your "cousins"? If you could also test someone from your mother's side of the family, then any matches that you and s/he have in common will obviously come from your mother's branch of the family - others who your match with will be your father's family. It might give you a starting point. :-\
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I doubt there are any living people involved. I am 72 years old, so I doubt my biological father can still be living. Yes, I did find my UK cousin through a DNA test. Of course, my DNA matches to her with enough centimorgans for that relationship. My much younger sister also tested, has no British ethnicity, has no match with that cousin and does not even match to me with enough centimorgans to be my full sibling. Now she and I are only half-siblings by that criterion but sisterhood and love are not measured in centimorgans. Through genealogical research and via comparison with other matches, it has been determined that I am related to my English cousin on her mother's side. So far, that's all that is known for certain.
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Have you scoured the 1901 and 1911 censuses and the 1939 register for likely candidates? Both the names can be found in the Hull area.
There is no way of finding military records for WW2 without much more information than just a name and even then each record has to be applied (and paid) for.
There are service records for the Great War with the name John Robert Richardson but they don't routinely list children and if they did, we don't know what the name is of the son.
My feeling is unless by some miracle a "lost" family member is reading Rootschat, an approach to the editor of a local newspaper in the Hull area may be the way to go?
MaxD
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On FreeBMD there are 12 male Richardsons born in Hull between 1914-1918. What evidence do you have that he came from Hull?
Carol
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From Freebmd:
Surname First name(s) Mother District Vol Page
Births Mar 1914
BROOKER James C Brooker Hull 9d 621
Births Sep 1917
Brooker Edna Middleton Hull 9d 403
Births Dec 1918
Brooker Ernest Middleton Hull 9d 422
Carol
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Thank you for your responses so far. I fully appreciate that it is going to be very difficult [if not impossible] to identify my father but, as I only very recently learned of the existence of the cousin, my daughter and I are still actively working on the matter. There are many problems we already know about that complicate everything. For example, Mrs. Brooker, a young widow, came to Hull from Kent to live with her sister and brother-in-law, the Richardsons. Her husband, Charles Brooker, had died as a result of his participation in WWI. But it is not known if Charles Brooker was originally from Hull and related to the many Brookers of Hull--or if he was from Kent.
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Did Charles Brooker die in the war or afterwards? Do you know the forename of Mrs Brooker? Approximately when did she join the Richardsons in Hull?
MaxD
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Did Charles Brooker die in the war or afterwards? Do you know the forename of Mrs Brooker? Approximately when did she join the Richardsons in Hull?
MaxD
The war ended in 1918 and Charles Brooker died in that same year. That's all I know. Mrs. Brooker, whose maiden name was Harriet Riley, was in Hull by 1919. She went to live with her sister, Louisa, and brother-in-law, John Robert Richardson. Mrs. Brooker had three children, Lily Brooker, Albert Brooker, and Winnie Brooker. Then, in 1924, Mrs. Brooker married a man named John R. Berry in Sculcoates, Yorshire. By him she had a son, Lawrence John P. Berry, whose birth was registered in Hull in 1925. I suppose one would need the British census of 1921 to find out who all was living in the Richardson household. I don't know if Louisa and John Richardson had any sons or not--and neither does my cousin. If they did and one of them was my father, my cousin would still be related to me as Louisa was her grandmother's sister. My cousin and I share 1069 centimorgans of DNA. I'm not certain if that is too much for a more distant relationship. Probably, Albert Brooker or Lawrence Berry would be the best candidates but my cousin could not place them in the battle for my hometown in Germany during or after the war. My cousin thought Albert served in India and Lawrence [very young even in 1945] was either in the Royal Navy or the merchant marine. This about sums up the entire difficulty.
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You might find this useful:
https://dnapainter.com/
Select the box under the pale blue bar which says "Go to the tool" and enter the cms to see the relationship estimates.
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Small progress perhaps.
A Driver Charles Edwin Brooker of the Royal Field Artillery died in France from wounds on 28 March 1918. His wife was HV Brooker of 8 Cromwell Terrace Chatham (Kent). CE Brooker married Harriet V Riley Q2 1912 in Medway district (Kent). There is a child of the marriage, Lydia MV Brooker born Q2 1913 Medway district who is mentioned in his Effects register entry.
There are a number of Brooker possibilities in Kent.
MaxD
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Could this be your man Berry?
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8331995
If so this would be his seamans "Pouch"
Records relating to individual seamen filed together in a pouch. These documents may include application forms (most with a photograph of the seaman), certificates, identity cards, cessation documents and notifications of death.
What you really need is his Form CRS10. This will give details of all the ships he served on, with dates and places of Engagement and Discharge. If it has survived it will be in the series BT382.For security reasons, You would need to visit Kew or appoint an independent researcher to look for you.
If you are prepared to do that I will post details later.
Have a day out at Kew and pick up his "Pouch" at the same time.
PS Can you give us the name of your home town in Germany?
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Small progress perhaps.
A Driver Charles Edwin Brooker of the Royal Field Artillery died in France from wounds on 28 March 1918. His wife was HV Brooker of 8 Cromwell Terrace Chatham (Kent). CE Brooker married Harriet V Riley Q2 1912 in Medway district (Kent). There is a child of the marriage, Lydia MV Brooker born Q2 1913 Medway district who is mentioned in his Effects register entry.
There are a number of Brooker possibilities in Kent.
MaxD
Yes, that's the one. What could be helpful in my search is that the daughter was called "Lydia" and not "Lily" as had been suggested to me. In that way, I might be able to find her married name [if any] and that might provide another connection. Thanks for your help.
As for the person who suggested the DNA painter--I have already used that tool but even Ancestry suggested that my new relative could even be a second cousin. It remains to be seen via genealogical digging and hopefully there will be a breakthrough. Thank you for your suggestion as this really is a valuable tool.
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Could this be your man Berry?
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8331995
If so this would be his seamans "Pouch"
Records relating to individual seamen filed together in a pouch. These documents may include application forms (most with a photograph of the seaman), certificates, identity cards, cessation documents and notifications of death.
What you really need is his Form CRS10. This will give details of all the ships he served on, with dates and places of Engagement and Discharge. If it has survived it will be in the series BT382.For security reasons, You would need to visit Kew or appoint an independent researcher to look for you.
If you are prepared to do that I will post details later.
Have a day out at Kew and pick up his "Pouch" at the same time.
PS Can you give us the name of your home town in Germany?
Thanks so much for this! It certainly provides options. The town where I was born [left for the US in 1952 with family] is Wesel on the Rhine in Westphalia. It was one of the places targeted in Operation Plunder under FM Montgomery and later became part of the British zone of occupation.
Also, I made an error yesterday in giving the amount of centimorgans I share with my UK cousin. The correct number is 1,089.
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There--found the marriage of Lydia Brooker already!
Lydia Brooker
mentioned in the record of Martinson and Lydia Brooker
Name Lydia Brooker
Event Type Marriage Registration
Event Place Hull, Yorkshire, England
Registration District Hull
County Yorkshire
Registration Year 1940
Registration Quarter Jan-Feb-Mar
Name of spouse Horatio Martinson
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1911 from familysearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X7TM-YZ3
no children with John & Louisa
1939 no redacted records.
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1911 from familysearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X7TM-YZ3
no children with John & Louisa
1939 no redacted records.
Thank you. Despite looking on the same [good] site previously, I was not able to find John and Louisa together. Perhaps I did not search in an early enough year. But in 1911 Louisa was still young. I did find a John Robert Richardson in Hull who was born in 1916 but could not locate who his parents were.
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Just to recap: My cousin and I have several DNA matches in common on Ancestry. They are among my closest matches there. One of these matches [who shares the most DNA with me after my cousin] was linked to my cousin's maternal grandmother, Harriet Riley, or rather one of Harriet's sisters [not Louisa Richardson]. Therefore, I had to conclude that I am connected to that maternal side.
Because of the amount of centimorgans we have in common, my biological father has to be a very close relative of hers. She had two uncles on her mother's side, one named Brooker and the other named Berry. The trouble is that neither of them can be placed in my town of Wesel in Germany at the time I should have been conceived. Albert Brooker was a seaman and, according to my cousin, Lawrence Berry was stationed in India and demobbed in Italy. This last is consistent with what I know about the British army in India, which was a volunteer army until 1939. Later, out of necessity, the India troops were sent west to the Mediterranean area and perhaps also to desert warfare and many of them were demobbed in Italy at the end.
On her father's side there are more possible men but I have not been able to connect myself to that side. By sheer coincidence, my cousin has another DNA relative who lives not more than 40 miles from me--but that relative knows she is descended from a common paternal ancestor with my cousin. As far as I know, that relative is not among our common matches. My Ancestry.com DNA relatives map shows me as being alone in my own state--where I have only lived for the past 14 years. Therefore, my only chance on my cousin's maternal side [insofar as I know] is if her great-aunt, Louisa Riley Richardson, had a son. Her husband, if you recall, was John Robert Richardson of Hull. He was born in 1883--but I did find another John Robert Richardson born in Hull in 1916. Yet I have not been able to find out the names of his parents in order to securely place him within the family.
The reason I believe that my connection to my cousin is not some sort of mistake within the DNA testing lab is that we do have those common DNA relatives and, also, my daughters got her as a relative before I ever tested with Ancestry. She was a mystery to them and so I was asked to test in order to try to shed some light. It turned out I am a closer match with my cousin than my daughters are, which makes sense. Somewhere out there is the reason for this but that is elusive thus far. My youngest sister offered to test with Ancestry to determine if we are really full sisters and, although we do share more DNA than most half-siblings, the tool mentioned in this thread indicated the great likelihood is that we are no more than that--half-siblings.