What if they weren't English? Where can I search?

[dizzybare]

SCHMALER

One of my ancestors seems to have been from Germany.

He was alive in !947 & 1949 when his 2 daughters were born.

His wife came to England and married here in 1959

I have no other information and wondered if anyone out there had any web sites for German births etc. that was in English or easily inderstandale German as I only have schoolgirl French.

Thanks
Dizzy

[jorose]

Were the two daughters b. in England and then his wife remarried 1959 also England? If so you can check the BMD indexes (via Ancestry, for free) for his death.

http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/archiveSearch.asp?WebType=0&Referer=full - there's only one SCHMALER listed here, an electrician from Poland who became a citizen in 1962.  Looking at the post-1983 death index, he died in 1999:

Tadeusz Ryszard Schmaler, 26 Apr 1914-Oct 1999, aged 85, residence Hillingdon.

[Rosiepol]

Tadeusz Schmaler was my father in law. He was Polish, but the borders varied from being in Poland or Germany. He only had one son, so very interested to learn od any other Schmalers as it's such an unusual name.

[carinthiangirl]

not so unusal - Germany has 141 results at phonebook:
http://www3.dastelefonbuch.de/?kw=Schmaler&ort=&pu=1&s=a10000&cmd=search&ort_ok=0&vert_ok=0&ciid=&rgid=&kgs=&ckrid=&district=&ciquarter=&pcZVO=&cx=&cy=&lat=&lon=&radius=&sp=0&aktion=23

schmal = small

[Rena]

You definitely need to ask for family stories to try to narrow down the place where your ancestor was born.  There are no official online records for German bmds - this information is either gained by visiting the relevant town archives in Germany or writing to the relevant church - all cost money.

The Morman church has filmed some church records which they are allowed to use outside of Germany.  You can discover if there is/are any to view by looking in the familysearch catalogue. If there is then you locate your local Morman FHS and order the film number for viewing at a modest cost.  It's best if you know the birth town/village of your ancestor, otherwise it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.   I clicked on "Keyword" (see the below webpage link) and entered "Poland" as a search option and got a page of results

https://familysearch.org/eng/library/fhlc/

I don't know the circumstances of how your ancestors arrived in the UK but there are a list of ships on this page which arrived in Liverpool together with a list of each Polish passenger.  I don't know whether the mother was pregnant at the time of arrival but if she was she could have been on one of the ships.
http://www.polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk/passengerlist/shipsindex.htm

from 1917 every "Alien" (= foreigner) was issued with a registration card and even in 1946 your ancestor would have had to have carried an Identity Card.  My ancestor's documentation shows the full names of the "Alien" and also has the town of origin plus parents names.

Perhaps he was one of those Poles who enlisted into the British Army/airforce - if you Google/surf you'll see there's some information on what's available and what is not.