I'm looking for any pointers someone can give please, as this is an area I've never looked at before.
I've debated whether to put this request for ideas in the Warwickshire section (the family ended up in Birmingham) or this overseas section but finally decided to start here.
The situation (as told to me) is this, with all the initial events taking place in India:
A child (who was almost certainly Anglo Indian on his mother's side from what I can see on DNA analysis) was born in around 1933 in the Moradabad area of India. His initial name was Leslie Gerald Edwards. He was adopted by a Mrs Gertrude Hollis (who was the sister of a Mr John Alexander). The Alexanders also had an adopted daughter named Daisy Violet Bickmore, who appears to have been born in Allahabad in 1918, although the surname James was also used. I understand a Flora James was involved in this too, although I have no idea where at the moment. I'm thinking this may have been some sort of informal arrangement as it's known HER mother was also called Daisy Bickmore and Daisy Jnr's surname was never changed. Eventually Mrs Hollis fostered Daisy with a view to her caring for Leslie and they moved away to Moradabad. Daisy eventually married Lancelot Niblett and they moved to the UK some time later.
It seems Leslie had two older brothers/half-brothers (Ronald and Clive) and those two arrived together in the UK in 1948. I don't think they had much connection with Leslie and I know Mrs Hollis must have been reasonably wealthy and there was bad feeling as Leslie attended a private school in Darjeeling. However he also ended up in the UK too, sometime prior to 1955, although I can't find any details of his journey, or what happened to Mrs Hollis.He DID keep that surname.
The feeling is that another woman (who also ended up in the UK but about whom there seems to be very little information, may in fact have been his mother. Her name was Mae or May and when she died (which would have been around 1966 in the "mental Hospital" in Rubery Birmingham she was probably using the name of Johnson. The surname of Were or Weir seems to crop up in various DNA matched trees but no one seems to have more than the name.
So I have quite a lot of information but no actual records other than the emigration info from India for the two older Edwards boys, also info on the Nibletts, which isn't really that relevant. It seems the Anglo-Indians stayed in more or less the same area once they arrived in the UK, all these found their way to Birmingham. Is anyone able to tell me what records might be out there to give me any clues? Either iIndian or UK?
