Find Ancestors

That's a shame - no chance of a photo of Mr King then!

Mum was given hers in 1953. It was a small one.
I have since found out that her eldest brothers wife was asked to get them all a small cert. When she asked her husband why they all had King on, he told her but this only came out much, much later.
All grans processions were lost in the war when she was not only bombed out once but twice.

Didn't your mum's siblings think it strange that their father's name wasn't on their birth cert when their parents were married?

Not that I know of. She didnt have much to leave

Yes I will ask her that, but I think she made clothes as mum wouldnt have recornised her as a dressmaker. You see mum told me she was a dressmaker before I looked at the certificate.
I have just noticed she was a dressmaker on her wedding cert as well in 1910.

Did your gran leave a will?

Can you find out from your mum if she made house furnishings? There's a Wallace King in the phone book who runs a house furnishing business in Norwich and I wondered if he could be our man.

As she stopped being a domestic in 1931 & became a dressmaker it seems that Mr King may have died.

Dressmaker, I guess she made clothes. I didnt really know her she died in 1956 but mum was very close to her which was why she cant understand all the lies she told her. She even took her to her husbands grave & told her it was her father.

Did she make clothes or house furnishings?

On Ronalds cert it says she is a domestic but on Beryls 1930 it says she is a dressmaker, which is what my mum remembers her as.

So it's possible that Mr King wasn't far away from the family home.
Is Gertrude's occupation shown on all the birth certificates?

I wonder if Mr King died and made provision for the children in his will.....even if this was veiled by a payment to Gertrude, 'for looking after him so well'

Gwyn

Who for, I wonder ;-)

Who employs a housekeeper? A widower or someone well off with a large house.

Does your mum know what her mum did?

On mums birth cert it says she was a domestic housekeeper,

I was wondering if Mr King was her employer. There are quite a few King tradesmen in the phone book.

I was just thinking about that Janice... It can't have been easy providing for all those children without a father.

I wonder if it was Mr King who died in 1931....?

Gwyn

Did your gran work to support the family? Do you know where/what job she did?

I think its Ashby Street & as its not a main road I dont suppose it all that long. I dont know it personally,

Gertrude was born in 1888 but she had no siblings anyway. Ronald never married but none of us knew about Mr KIng until I started doing this ancestry. I thought we were just an ordinary family. Mum is the only one who knows because I told her, other than her older brother who was around then but hes dead now.

You don't need a first name to search electoral lists.
They are searchable by address.
In a town there are sometimes several different areas, split by Parliamentary Wards, so you have to be careful to search them all to find the correct road.

I don't know the area...was Ashby Road very long?
I would search old lists for all of Ashby Road for the relevant years making a note of any King families.
This would give a name to use for further research.

Gwyn