illegitimate baby

[sylvieme]

Bless your heart, I really wasn't expecting to find anyone else to be interested enough to do research themselves!

16 years! Good grief, that is a long time to still be searching for answers. I'm looking at it as worst way I have to wait for the 1921 census to be released before I've got any certainty about who was where and what the connections are.

Thanks for the encouragement, it's hard to know sometimes what leads are worth pursuing.

Funny you should suggest a variation in spelling. There's a timber merchant in Haslemere which goes under the name Coomers – and got me all excited for a while. Then I found that in 1925 the owners were Jesse Mann & Sons who owned it until at least the 1970s so that was the end of that idea!

But – going from his registration to vote in 1924 in Haslemere, the spelling was Coomber so it would seem prudent to stick with that for now. It's unlikely that he would change the spelling of his name from that time forward (though what would happen a century or so early is anybody's guess)

Do any of the websites release marriage certificates? Or do I have to apply to some government agency? I've only just succumbed to paying a subscription to findmypast – specifically to dig into the 1939 register. But so far I've been looking at free sites or using the library (but that's obviously more difficult just now)

[chempat]

I, too, could not see him, named as in the ER's, and was considering Comber (think I even tried Scotland).

Order from here:
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

you should get enough details from here to help fill it in:
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

[brigidmac]

Maybe a silly.question but as well as surname differences

have you searched for first name as Ted or Teddy
Its quite a common.abbreviation

[Jo Harding]

I know that Find My Past does have some marriage certificates on the site. I have searched these for my own family tree. You could look to see what they have for Brighton Registration District in the 1920s.

Another possibility is that he is using an alias, or aliases. Remember that marriage I posted on the 21 November? There were two entries for what appeared to be the same marriage. Edward J Beckett and Edward J Coomber, married Margaret A.M Griffiths. That looked strange and I wonder whether the Edward in question had two different surnames. I wonder whether any other Roots Chatters can give their opinions?

I wouldn't rule out the Edward James Comber born in East Grinstead Registration District. It isn't far from Brighton and the Edward James Coomber births registered were non existent in my searches.

I did a search on The Keep site for the name of Coomber and it produced 221 hits. These are the results:

https://www.thekeep.info/collections/search/?s=coomber&qa%5Bkeyword_reference_type%5D=0&qa%5Bpartner%5D&qa%5Btitle%5D&qa%5Bperson%5D&qa%5Bplace%5D&qa%5Bsubject%5D&qa%5Bformat%5D&qa%5Bidentifier%5D&qa%5Bdate_from%5D&qa%5Bdate_to%5D&cbav=2&cbadvsearchquery

It appears to be quite a common name around Brighton and Eastbourne. There are some marriage details but I cannot see anything for the 1923 marriage.

Has anyone considered a DNA test to see if there are any matches?

Jo

[brigidmac]

Yes I have examples of people taking step parents surname ..even in adult hood

Also using mothers maiden name

All sorts of reasons doesnt necessarily mean they are hiding
The two surnames on marriage certificate is interesting ...wording is mportant

My grandma grew up with her adoptive surname but her marriage has birth mothers surname and otherwise known as ....adoptive name .

Her birth fathers surname was also given as a middle name

There are two entries for her too

So that could be a possible explanation definitely worth following up the Beckett surname too

[sylvieme]

Hi there !
Thank you so much for looking into this – that certainly gives me enough to keep me quiet for a while!

Meanwhile I've got a couple of updates.
I tried to get a closed record open on the 1939 – assuming that my relative was with her adoptive Mother in Brighton and it came back as no, not correct. So I'm still baffled as to where she was from birth to 16. It's a bit annoying that you have to know where a person is before they'll open the record – that's the whole point of searching for them isn't it??

Then I started thinking about her birth Mother getting pregnant – who was she working for in Haslemere and who was around her. Edward J Coomber is the obvious one as he was registered at exactly the same address, but it was a cottage in the grounds of a big house well out of the centre of town. I would like him to be a tutor of some kind (the Tonbridge guy) so I was looking for families with children of an appropriate age. Luckily I'd noted the neighbours names from the ER when I first started doing this research so it was a matter of going back to that.

The residents of the big house married in 1924, so any of their children would be too young in 1926/7. (though both their Father's were listed as 'gentlemen' which was a thrill as I haven't come across anyone with money so far – ha ha! )
Likewise the next ones I looked at married in 1920 and the husband came from a family of bankers so I thought a child born before marriage would be unlikely.
However the third one I looked at threw up some interesting possibilities. He's the wonderfully named Weatherill Abbot Strickland born 1898. His Father was from Natal, so maybe that has something to do with the name but thank you all the same! It appears he served in WW1 then qualified as a dentist in 1922, and was in practise in 1925 very close to Dene End house. Then in 1927 he went to Algiers and 1929 to Genoa ( both boats were South African and it might have been a honeymoon trip). He died in 1948 and probate gives his beneficiary as Kathleen, his widow, but I can't find a marriage for them – could they have married abroad? And if so do any websites cover South Africa?

He would have been 28 years old in 1926 and a dashing young dentist might steal anyone's heart so is this my mystery man??

Thoughts please ??

[Rosinish]

My 1st step would be to obtain her marriage to see what it reveals as there are too many 'could be's' even if the marriage cert. doesn't throw any light on the subject of her father?

Annie

[[Ray]]

? How about this for your pile of notes . . . . .     


Marriage Sep 1922 Brentford 3a 275     
Kathleen HAYTER / Weatherill A STRICKLAND




Ray

[sylvieme]

that looks fabulous! Did you see a location for the marriage?
Thanks Ray.