Look up help please trying to find a birth for Ethel Doreen Swatman?

[sheena.R]

Hello I'm trying to find a birth for Ethel Doreen Swatman who died in 1947 in Southampton UK, I can find the death but not birth? Can anyone help please?
With thanks

Sheena 😌

[kilkennylass]

Hi there, the only birth record I could find was for an Ethel D Swatman born in Wolverhampton in 1917 (mothers maiden name Preston) but that would make her 30 in 1947, not 20 as the death record indicates.  Do you have the death certificate ?

Do you know where she was born, or her parents names/mothers maiden name ?  I've searched Swatman births for 1926, 27, 28 but can't find anything for an Ethel Doreen

I'll keep looking....

[Cell]

Hi,



 Besides the big age discrepancy of 10 years with the  Wolverhampton birth in 1917 birth ( which is West midlands), I think the 1917 birth is likely to be this lady below as Southampton is not really anywhere near Wolverhampton

Name:  Ethel D Swatman
(Spouse Meredith )
Marriage Sep 1953  - Bilston, West Midlands

I tried both ancestry and freebmd with a search term  of *man so it would bring up all surnames , misspellings and all ending with man. There doesn't seem to be any likely births for her in England and Wales that I can find.

There is a public tree on ancestry which the owner of the tree has put the Wolverhampton 1917 birth for your lady and the 1947 death . This person has the parents George Richard Swatman and Sarah Ann Preston , no siblings on it. "Molineux Family Tree " . I don't know how well the tree is researched, but I'd  tend to tread carefully especially because there is that above Ethel D Swatman who marries around the same area as the 1917 birth

There could also be a chance that she was not registered with the middle name and acquired her name of Doreen when she was christened.

Can you tell us a little more about your Ethel as mentioned by Kilkennylass?
Can you tell us the names of her siblings? Is your direct ancestor  one of her siblings? If so , did the family/her parents stay put in England? Is there any chance at all that she may not have been born in England and Wales?

Have you access to ancestry or alike? If so, another suggestion to rule out that she is definitely not registered in England and Wales around the time frame is to manually go through the  images of SW births page by page , say from around 1925 to about 1929, if you've not already done this of course.

It does happen that some entries get missed out of being transcribed. Also depending on what site that you are searching for her on , sometimes there are missing pages too  ( I know that ancestry has had some missing quarters  in the past when I have scrolled through some of the letters).

Kind Regards

[kilkennylass]

Hi Cell, I didn't think the 1917 Wolverhampton birth was the right one either, like you I also thought its more likely to be associated with the 1953 Meredith marriage, but thought i'd post it up so that Sheena can discount it herself in case she hadn't done so already.

I searched all collections/worldwide for the birth and nothing came up for outside of UK & Ireland, and no birth announcement in the British Newspaper Archive either.  Theres a possible, but remote, chance she married at 18 or 19, and thus wasn't a Swatman at birth, but I couldn't find any Swatman marrying an Ethel Doreen in 1947/46/45...

[Cell]

Hi Cell, I didn't think the 1917 Wolverhampton birth was the right one either, like you I also thought its more likely to be associated with the 1953 Meredith marriage, but thought i'd post it up so that Sheena can discount it herself in case she hadn't done so already.

I searched all collections/worldwide for the birth and nothing came up for outside of UK & Ireland, and no birth announcement in the British Newspaper Archive either.  Theres a possible, but remote, chance she married at 18 or 19, and thus wasn't a Swatman at birth, but I couldn't find any Swatman marrying an Ethel Doreen in 1947/46/45...

Hi Killkennylass,
I tried that too, searching for a Swatman who married an Ethel .

I have just found this related post by Sheena that may help http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=723056.0

Sheena, have you got her death cert? If not, and depending on how much you want to find  Ethel who died in 1947, perhaps purchasing her death cert may be the way to go , it may throw some light on her.

KilkennyLass , Have you searched for a death in the papers , just in case she died in an accident and there's a report, or an obituary? I don't want search the archive if you've already searched.

Kind Regards

[kilkennylass]

I have just found this related post by Sheena that may help http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=723056.0

Sheena, have you got her death cert? If not, and depending on how much you want to find  Ethel who died in 1947, perhaps purchasing her death cert may be the way to go , it may through some light on her.

KilkennyLass , Have you searched for a death in the papers , just in case she died in an accident and there's a report, or an obituary? I don't want search the archive if you've already searched.

Ah, having read the other thread Sheena was already aware of the 1917 Wolverhampton birth,  still seems to be the only one anyone can find anywhere !

I have now searched for the death in the newspaper archives, but there was nothing.....

I agree with you Cell, death certificate is the way forward, it'll confirm Ediths age and whether that 1917 birth is connected somehow.

Bed time for me now though

[Cell]

Hi,
Two other trees on ancestry have listed the 1917 birth  but have listed her middle initial of D as Daisy, marriage to Charles Henry Meredith and then her death in 2003 , children are private , so they are probably still living.  I don't think they have the 1917 birth cert , or the marriage cert (unless father's name was blank on marriage) as the trees lists no parents for Ethel, but they do have  plenty on the parents and family of her spouse Charles.

I do think the only way you're probably going to solve it is to purchase the relevant BMD certs.

Best of luck
Kind Regards

[sheena.R]

Hello everyone, sorry for the delay in my reply, yes the other Ethel was what I thought but proved to be the wrong one, and as I was having so much trouble finding a birth I thought I would put it on here so you lovely people can point me maybe in the right direction,I am going to order the death certificate at the weekend as think it will be my best bet, and It never even crossed my mind she might not of been born in the UK until you pointed it out, so going to try looking at abroad etc and other than that I'm at a loss 😔
Thank you all for trying to help 😊

[sheena.R]

Hi cell, sorry missed some of your post so will reply here, this is all we know...she had a child Gerald franklin Swatman as he was know by at birth ( my dad) who was born in 1945, he was put up for adoption and Ethel died in 1947 in Southampton where dad was born his dad was an American solider who we guess knew nothing of his birth etc and he returned to the USA after the war and that's about it 😞