Genealogy Chat

I have the names of my paternal grandparents on my fathers birth certificate but know little else, certainly no dates of birth or marriage.
What is the next best step to trace my ancestors?, I have searched the BMD records fairly extensively to no avail.
PB

You need to find the marriage of your grandparents. You can work backwards from your father's birth date or put the details on this site and hope that someone looks up the records for you. Good luck Irene

Paul
What years are we talking about. Anything before 1920 should be on FreeBMD. Let us have the details you have so far and see if we can help at all.

My Father, William H Bennett was born 30/10/1932 to William Bennett and Rose Bennett (nee Perks).
Birth was registered in Burton in December of that year.
They lived at 6 Thomas Street, Burton upon Trent.
I think he may have had two sisters but I'm not sure.

Do you have access to Ancestry? If so you can go to the full marriage index & search backwards from 1932 for the person with the least common name. Luckily the surnames of both partners are on the index by that time.

Ozi.

Where was he born Paul.

I do Ozbird

Any idea if the sisters were older or younger?

No sorry, my father died in 1976 unfortunately which means details are really sketchy.
I believe that my grandmother may have passed away when he was around 4 years old and his father would have placed him in a home before joining the Army....would be possibly around 1936 therefore.

What is the cheapest way to search through so many marriage records?

Any help gratefully received.

Paul, you said you have an ancestry sub? In which case it would cost nothing on top of your sub to search through the years.

I have looked at all records of marriage for Rose Perks from 1932 when my father was born back to 1912 and can find no trace of William Bennett/Rose Perks.
Does anyone have any other advice

Perhaps Rose was previously married and although she gives her maiden name on birth cert, her marriage to William may be in another name?

Suzanne

What would be the next step then Suzi??

Have you found your father's birth on the full index? If so what is the mother's maiden name on that? If it's Perks (or whatever it is) start looking for other Bennett/Perks back from his birth date. You should get an idea of when the marriage took place from that.

Looking for the marriage (full index) - check all the Bennetts that are suitable to see if it's a Rose Whatever, or a Rosemary or a Roslyn, anything that fit's the bill.

Ozi.

You will have to search the full index image by image, quarter by quarter, as the partial (freeBMD) index has very few transcriptions of anything from that time - often you can't even find any Smith.

It may also be worth looking a few years ahead - just in case they married after your father was born. If one of them had been previously married they may have had to wait for a divorce etc.

Jill

Have you actually got your father's birth cert?

If so it should have a previous married name for Rose if she had been married before.

Christine

There is a death for a Rosa Bennett aged 45 in Burton area AMJ 1936.
There is also a marriage for William Bennett and Rosa Wright in Burton area AMJ 1932.

1901 census

Rose Perks
Age: 9
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1892
Relation: Daughter
Father's Name: John
Mother's Name: Rose
Gender: Female
Where born: Burton, Staffordshire, England

Civil Parish: Horninglow
Ecclesiastical parish: Burton upon Trent St Paul
County/Island: Staffordshire
Country: England

Registration district: Burton upon Trent
Sub registration district: Burton upon Trent
ED, institution, or vessel: 30
Neighbors: View others on page
Household schedule number: 150
Household Members: Name Age
Arthur Perks 23
John Perks 47
John Perks 20
Minnie Perks 6
Rose Perks 44
Rose Perks 9

Source Citation: Class: RG13; Piece: 2645; Folio: 81; Page: 24.

marriage?

Rosa Victoria Perks/William Arthur Wright
Year of Registration: 1908
Quarter of Registration: Apr-May-Jun
District: Burton Upon Trent
County: Derbyshire, Staffordshire
Volume: 6b
Page: 665

Could fit - could be completely wrong :-))))

Andy