Tracing an illusive Railway employee, London, 1930s

[fiddlerslass]

Bob,
Have you considered doing a DNA test? It may be the way to confirm that Albert Spiers really is the same man as Albert/Alf Wilson.

[MollyC]

What I find "strange" is that when Martha/Madge registered Eric's birth in 1945 she had moved back to Staffordshire (probable support from family) but did not record a fathers name or occupation.

The father was not present and she could not prove she was married or a widow, so it could not be recorded.  This registration occurred just after Eric's 14th birthday.  It may have been connected with getting his first job.  It would be interesting to see the original registration, why did it need re-registering?

... the railway requiring two references as to character

That may be the main reason for changing his surname.  If he moved to London, found work in a restaurant for a while and behaved himself, he probably managed to contrive it.

[BobB1]

Bob,
Have you considered doing a DNA test? It may be the way to confirm that Albert Spiers really is the same man as Albert/Alf Wilson.

Yes, I've considered it, but surely the gamble is that there is a DNA sample, somehow given/taken by the man or family in question? I don't know how likely that would be.

My task for now is trying to follow the 3 Alberts who have been discussed so far as they seem possible candidates for Alf. Trying hard to find a connection or rule one or all out.

[MollyC]

I'm treading a bit carefully here.

From FreeBMD:  In 1947 Joan M Spiers was married in Birmingham.  They apparently had one son, in 1950.

In 2014 someone with a screenname including Joan's married surname created a tree in Family Search without giving any sources - only four people included.
Joan Margaret and her husband.
Joan's father and mother - given as Albert Spiers, Amy L Ellson, marriage 1922, no dates of birth or death.
But for Joan Margaret and her husband there are the FULL dates of birth and death - somebody out there knows the details.
Did they give up? Or move on to some other tree?

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?    (Joan's person identifier is L6V2-GVN)

[Girl Guide]

Interesting.  Some time ago when you were searching family trees on Family Search there was the option to contact the person who did the tree.  That information doesn't seem to exist any more.

It is just the name of the ancestor with a number attached. That therefore makes it difficult to follow up on that ancestor.  To me it seems pointless to put ancestor information without any means of contacting the originator for further information.

[MollyC]

I have left a message for this person, who may never look at the message box.  Later I contacted FS Help, who replied today saying:

"We are unable to alert the contributor by email due to the settings on their account."

   -  which probably are designed to prevent people being bothered by circulars.  I suggested they need to re-think how that works.

[Girl Guide]

Then one wonders why they bothered to put that information on Family Search if they aren't willing to receive messages from anyone. 

[MollyC]

It's not the messaging service, it's emails from FS itself.  But if you don't open Family Search AND Log in, you don't see there are messages waiting.  You can use the website without logging in, but in this case the person probably got nowhere and gave up years ago.  Probably not an experienced researcher, just trying to find a few facts to answer some unknowns.  Or they may have moved on, and been looking elsewhere.

[Sc00p]

I don't use Familysearch trees but if the user has notifications active and you were to add a note or fact to one of the persons, would the tree owner get notified?