The Ridgway Set

Originally, I was going to concentrate on trying to find the deaths of every second generation from my grandmother back, in order to determine if Alzheimer’s was a factor in their demise.  This was based on other family traits that seem to have skipped a generation in my family.  That would mean looking for the deaths of Oliver & Ellen Ridgway;  Oliver’s grandparents Samuel & Jane Ridgway and George & Mary Rossiter;  Ellen’s grandparents Abraham & Charlotte Parsons and James & Mary Batten.

However, finding anything to do with Ellen’s side of the family has been very problematic.  That side had a LOT of children, all with similar names over many generations.  Often their ‘age’ on the censuses didn’t match from year to year, as did their ‘birthplace’.  Ellen’s father George was almost the same age as Oliver’s grandfather, and very few of them were born, married and died in the limited time where certificates began and privacy laws start to kick in (approx 1830’s to 1920’s).  So most stories for the Parsons’ are incomplete.  We may never solve the mystery of what happened to Ellen.

Instead of ruling out Alzheimer’s in every second generation, I have now changed my strategy.  Now I’m going to try to rule out a whole branch of the family tree in one hit – the Ridgways from Oliver Ridgway to the earliest registered death of a direct ancestor.  Why?  Because I have a fairly complete set of information (minus a few key deaths) and all the death certificates I have already ordered are from that side. 

That’s why I’ve been concentrating on Mary Rossiter and her daughter Sarah Ridgway (Oliver’s grandmother & mum, my gggggrandmother & ggggrandmother).  Luckily I have wonderful people to help me on RootsChat, and they put me on to yet another website called Family History Online. 

Family History Onlinehas monumental inscriptions for lots of English graves, as well as death records, burials, marriages, baptisms etc.  Unfortunately, it’s a pay-per-view site.  Register and you can search the database for free, but if you want to actually look at the details, you have to pay a few English Pence per record.  (If there’s lots of records for a common name in a county, then you have to pay to view all of them, which really adds up)

Buying a five pound voucher (there’s not even a button on my keyboard for English pounds), I did a quick search for a family member where the death details were known – just to check the system.  I searched for Samuel Ridgway in the Somerset Monumental Inscriptions database and paid eight pence to view the only record, a headstone inscription at St Augustine’s Church in West Monkton:

Jane Ridgway, died 11 Nov 1897, at Bathpool, aged 72.  And her husband, Samuel Ridgway, died 27 July 1901, aged 62.  Also their only son, William, died 2 May 1895, in Australia, aged 32.

Cross-referencing this with the registers I found the details matched, and I was even a little touched that William had been memorialized, even though he is buried at Melbourne General Cemetery, half a world away. 

Confident that I could find something of value, I searched the same database for Mary Rossiter.  I found 2 headstone inscriptions, that I paid sixteen pence to view.  Initially they both seemed to be ‘wrong’ until I re-read them:

William Ernest Blackmore, died 27 Aug 1924, aged 50.  And Alice Delia Blackmore, died Sept 1947, aged 67.  Also Mary Rossiter, died 27 Dec 1926, aged 88.  West Monkton, St Augustine

And so I had found my gggggrandmother, buried withher daughter Alice (who she was living withat the time of the 1901 census).  For the few days prior I had spent every spare moment I had trawling through images of deathregisters for Mary’s death.  The last image I had looked for was the third quarter of 1926, so the next image on my list was the deathregister page withMary on it.  Immediately I downloaded it and ordered her death certificate.  I would have found it anyway, but this was so much easier – just a pity I couldn’t search for all the other inscriptions in St Augustine’s graveyard.  I might just have a chance of finding Ellen.

Instead I searched for her mother-in-law, Sarah Pring, formerly Ridgway.  I found it on a headstone inscription:

Henry John PRING, died 25 Dec 1948, aged 79.  And his wife, Sarah Pring, died 29th of July 1950, aged 85.  West Monkton, St Augustine.

Christmas must have been full of sad memories for Sarah.  Her mother and daughter died close to Christmas and her second husband on Christmas day.  Her life really was full of tragedy.  At least two children died as babies in addition to her first husband, my ggggrandfather. 

What I wouldn’t give to walk around the cemetery at St Augustine’s.  I know from the Somerset Monumental Inscriptions database that the Parsons’ aren’t memorialized, but maybe I would find evidence of other family members – Ellen or Evelyn’s sister (Olive?) or maybe Lily Ridgway (who could be Lily Gready, buried with her husband Ernest).  I wish I had the money to visit the cemetery and the Tanpitts farm.  It strikes me that there are no direct descendants of my gggggrandparents & ggggrandparents left in England to visit these graves.  No one would have visited them for a long time. 

The deaths of my gggggrandparents

A few weeks ago I ordered the death certificates of all my gggggrandparents that I had exact death information for.  Yesterday they came in the mail.

Ripping them open, I looked at once for their causes of death.

Samuel Ridgway – pneumonia

Jane Ridgway – Mitral? disease (maybe heart failure?)

George Rossiter – Cystitis/Natural Decay

No Alzheimer’s or anything resembling ‘mental decay’ (which is what I would expect it to be called back then).  It left me feeling a little strange.  I didn’t really have an expectation that one of them would have died with dementia, but I don’t know whether I would more or less relieved if one of my ggggrandparents had.  If one of them had died with dementia, then at least I would know there was a family history and where to look for more possible sufferers.  As it stands, I have to keep searching.  At the moment I’m preoccupied with Mary Rossiter.  I can’t find her death or her presence in the 1901 census (that doesn’t mean she’d already died, as I found out with her daughter Sarah).  Mary Rossiter was the informant for her husband’s death.  She signed the register with an x, which implies she was illiterate.  That may be a factor in looking for her.  I’ll keep that in mind. 

Bring, Bring…Is Sarah or Lily there?

Yesterday I felt like I’d almost hit the wall – like I there was no documentation left to tell me what happened to my ggggrandmother Sarahand her daughter Lily.  So I re-read some of the information I already had, and some of the information given to me by the lovely people at RootsChat just in case I’d missed anything.  And blow-me-down I had. 

Ages ago it was suggested that maybe Sarah Ridgway had remarried in England and there were two possible grooms – Giles or Pring.  Looking at census records would be able to tell me who this Sarah Ridgway married, but unfortunately the couple couldn’t be pinned down in the next census.  I got to thinking about this, and decided that if it was my Sarah, then she would have Lily living with her (Oliver was living with his grandfather).  So instead of searching for Sarah, I searched for Lily on the 1901 census. 

I searched for Lily without and without a surname, born in 1886, with and without the word Australia, then with ‘Hobart’.  Bingo. 

Lily Ridgway Bring was living at Barton St Gloucester, with her mother Sarah and father Henry John.  According to the transcript, she was born in Qasmania, Hobart.  It sounded to me like there were a few transcription errors so I looked at the original image.  Sure enough, Lily Ridgway Pring was living with her mother and her new husband, Henry John Pring, a market gardener.

So now I know where Lily and Sarah went after William died and Oliver went to live with his grandfather.  And now I’m going to spend some time figuring out where they ended up.

Only e’s are buried in the cemetery.

Whatever happened to:

• Sarah Ridgway formerly Rossiter, my ggggrandmother
• Lily Ridgway, her daughter
• William Frank Ridgway, her son, and
• Mary Rossiter, formerly Parker, her mother and my gggggrandmother?

Somewhere between 1893, when William Frank was born in Collingwood, and 1895, when William Ridgway died in Carlton, something happened to splinter the Ridgway family.

I’m assuming that Oliver Ridgway went back to England, as he ended up living with his Grandfather at the time of the 1901 census (who may have been Oliver’s only living relative at this time).  William’s death certificate says that Sarah and little William Frank had died by this time, and what happened to Lily (7 years) who may have been living alone in Victoria?

There is no registration of Sarah or William Frank’s deaths in Victoria, nor can I find their deaths in England.  Was the information on the death certificate erroneous?

It was a long shot, but I thought that maybe Sarah and William Frank may be buried with Elsie Ridgway, who died in 1889 in Richmond (VIC).  So I went back to the Victorian Justice Website and downloaded an uncertified copy of the death register for that time.  There were several children that died at the same time, all from different causes. 

Elsie Ridgway died of Gastric Enteritis, after 4 days of suffering.  She was buried in Boroondara Cemetery, Kew in the Pauper’s section with a few other children (probably those on the same death register page).  None of Elsie’s family are buried at this cemetery.  This was confirmed by a lovely volunteer, who also sent me a photo of the section Elsie is buried in.  I am very grateful for this photo and for her efforts on my part.  It made me very emotional, as I have a baby daughter. 

Now I’m back to searching for the people in the list above.  I can’t find Mary Rossiter, Sarah’s mother on the English censuses or in the death records.  Maybe she came to Australia to help Sarah, (or William after Sarah died).  Maybe she was the one looking after Lily.  I’ll have to keep her in mind when I’m looking for Sarah.

The informant for Elsie’s death in 1889 was William Ridgway, Leeds St Richmond.  It appears he signed the register himself.  His writing is legible, but it was really interesting to see that even though the registrar clearly wrote ‘Elsie Ridgway’, William has signed his name with a tiny little squiggle in between the d and g, that could be interpreted as ‘Ridgeway’.  I find myself reminded of the mnemonic device I was taught as a child to help my spelling:  only e’s are buried in the cemetery.

It runs in the family…

Most of Evelyn’s family came from West Monkton, so I Googled it.  I found some amazing things, some of which I wish to share.  Some I’d like to keep in the ‘hunch’ basket of things that I may be able to connect up later.   

I’ve also been thinking about the few hints that suggested that Evelyn’s mother, Ellen Ridgway, ended up in an asylum.  As I Googled, I found Somerset and Wells Lunatic Asylumin Taunton.   It started off as a pauper’s asylum (quite affordable for gardeners, dressmakers and shop keepers), but at the time Ellen may have been a patient the lunatics included people with melancholia, epilepsy and dementia. [Cue the sound of penny dropping.] 

When I first heard that Ellen may have ended up in a mental institution, I just assumed it was because she was crazy.  Maybe even driven mad.  I hadn’t really thought about where dementia patients would end up in the early 20th century (or earlier) if the dementia was prolonged, as with early-onset Alzheimer’s.  Supposing it was socially unacceptable to have a middle-aged dementia sufferer in your family, I guess Alzheimer’s sufferers would end up in a hospital or asylum. 

The hospital records for that period are still closed to the public, but some are held at the Somerset Records Office and I may be able to check if Ellen Ridgway was a patient at the Somerset and Wells Lunatic Asylum.  I just have to think about the best way of trying to figure it all out.  Also, the Asylum had their own chapel and burial ground, so Ellen may be buried there and those records may be a research option.

Googling about I found some really nice pictures of both the asylum and the cemetery, which also has a ‘friends of’ society.  I would love to post pictures, but I’m worried about copyright, so here’s links instead:

Somerset and Wells Lunatic Asylum

The chapel and burial ground

The actual asylum buildings look very nice to me.  Having never been to England, they are slightly reminiscent of something I may have seen in the Midsommer Murders TV show or Harry Potter movies. 

Images of the cemetery show a peaceful, quiet resting place.  Very few of the graves are marked, which is a shame (particularly if I am looking for Ellen’s grave),  but all the same it seems appropriate – like maybe the people buried there don’t mind being left alone. 

After my night’s research efforts, I had a strong feeling that if Ellen did end up in an asylum, that this would be the right sort of place.  Prior to finding the asylum information, I had assumed Ellen was a psychiatric patient as a young woman.  However, I now had a sense that maybe she was a dementia patient for a considerable length of time.  Pure speculation, I know, but it now seemed a real possibility that a history of Alzheimer’s (if there is one) could come from Ellen’s side of the family – the Parsons’.

The last thing I looked at before I shut the laptop down was a West Monkton events page.  I noticed that the West Monkton players were putting on a production of “It runs in the family”.  I take that as either a sign I’m getting closer, or a really weird coincidence.

A birth, death and marriage

Even though I am waiting for news from Evelyn’s daughters, I am still searching for evidence of her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents…etc. etc.  I just can’t help myself. 

The Victorian Department of Justice offers a service where, provided you know a registration number, you can download a pdf image (uncertified) of a birth, death or marriage for $17.50 AUD.  It’s instant, but it can be a little hard to read. 

I have two ancestors that died in Victoria, William Ridgway – my ggggrandfather – and his baby daughter Elsie.  Elsie was born in Victoria, as was William Frank her brother. 

On Friday I decided to download William Ridgway’s death registration.  He died at the age of 32, so Alzheimer’s wasn’t going to be evident, but I was curious about how he died and at names of his children.  What I got totally surprised me, and I found myself ringing the family historian and declaring that we’d been looking for dead people.  Of course, they’ve all been dead a long time…but we had assumed a much longer time period than what actually happened.

William Ridgway died on the 2nd of May, 1895 in Carlton Victoria of a bowel obstruction, haemorrhage and exhaustion.  He was working as a butcher (remember the tanpits) and the informant had enough detail to confirm he was my ggggrandfather, but some of the facts were a little shaky.  In particular, the names of the children were Elsie (dead), William Frank (dead), Sarah (dead), Lilly 7 years…notice there’s no mention of an Oliver.  His wife’s name was also listed as Jane Thorne – who was in fact his mother.

At first I got a little freaked out, and started to wonder if I had the wrong family.  So I also downloaded the registration of William Frank’s birth, as he was the last born child before William’s death and all the siblings should be named.  Sure enough, Oliver was listed on this document where the information was provided by Sarah Ridgway – but there wasn’t a child ‘Sarah’. 

This has lead me to conclude that by 1895, when William died, the family was no longer together.  Elsie had been born and died.  Oliver had most probably travelled back to England (as he was staying with his grandfather by 1901), and ’something’ had happened to Sarah and William Frank.  If the death registration is correct, Sarah and William Frank had died – but I couldn’t find a registration of their deaths in Australia. 

My gut feeling is that Sarah took the kids, including Oliver, back to England.  Perhaps she and William Frank did die in England.  Either the informant for William’s death assumed the rest of the family was dead or that’s what he/she had been told.  But then why was Lilly, 7 years, still listed?  I really hope she wasn’t an ‘orphan’ all alone in Australia whilst the rest of her family was in England.

William Ridgway was buried on the 3rd of May, 1895 in Melbourne General Cemetery, Church of England section, Compartment T, Grave 613.  It appears that only the undertaker was present.  No other family members (including Elsie) are buried there.  I’ve sent my brother (who lives 5 minutes walk from the cemetery) to see if he can find a tombstone for additional clues.  Hopefully the death registration information isn’t correct, and the family was together in England, rather than orphaned or isolated from each other.  Either way, Oliver’s memories of Victoria must have been very sad. 

Today in the mail I received a certified copy of Ellen and Oliver’s marriage registration from England.  It made me feel a lot happer than the other certificates I’ve been looking at over the weekend.  It didn’t really contain any new information – rather it just confirmed everything we already knew. 

Ellen Parsons and Oliver Ridgway were married on the 18th of December 1907 at the parish church in West Monkton.  He was a 22 year old market gardener and she was 25.  I know from census records that the Parsons family had the West Monkton Post Office and grocers on Taunton Road.  In my mind I’m visualising a picturesque little stone building where Oliver would come to collect his mail and deliver vegetables for the Parsons family to sell.  Maybe there was a little budding romance over the cabbages and carrots.  I wonder if he brought a little something special just for Ellen. 

Wait and Hope…

Yesterday I finished off the letter to the lady I believe to be my grandmother’s real sister, letting her know about the child her mother left in Australia. 

It was written on pink, flowery paper and was 3 pages long.  I included an ancestry chart, which extended from Evelyn to her great-grandparents, a map of the tan pits farm, picture of the boat that Evelyn travelled to Australia on and some census records.  In a separate envelope I enclosed all the documents that provide evidence of the link between Evelyn and Olwyn.  There were quite a few, including electoral rolls and registers.  In this envelope I also included all of Olwyn’s baby photos – including those pictured with Evelyn – just in case some of them were recognised by Evelyn’s daughters.  In another envelope I included a complete family tree, description of each family member and photos of my extended family.  My intention wasn’t just to provide information about my family, but also to let my great-aunts know what they may gain by being a part of my family’s lives. 

I cannot express how hard it was to write the letter, knowing that I may cause a great deal of upset and distress in her life.  It’s making my stomach turn just to think about it.

I’ve never known anything to feel so wrong… yet, feel so right in my whole life. 

Wrong:

·     because there should be a mediator or agency that deals with direct contact, not me.  There are protocols that should be followed, legalities to be considered.  (But I couldn’t find an agency suitable)

·     because I have been writing about it so much in this blog.  My grandmother’s birth family could potentially be the next reader.  The content may be just too close to home.  The bare facts too raw and public.  I guess I didn’t think it through too much before I started.  I didn’t adequately consider the possibility of Evelyn having a family.  It almost feels too late now.  I already regret it.  (It also seems I am advocating inappropriate methods of finding and contacting adopted family – I’m really not…I feel like I have run out of options and have to do it myself, when I would have liked an agency to do all the hard stuff)

Right:

·     because there have been a number of amazing coincidences in the journey that has led me directly to this family.  It feels like fate has conspired to bring us together

·     because my new great-aunt sounded like she was almost wistful about having relatives or more family

In the end, I decided to put myself in her shoes.  Quietly, in my mind I role-played a similar situation where I found out about a long-lost sister.  I guessed I would be shocked, and hurt that it took so long for someone to tell me, but I would want to know.  Curiosity would get the better of me, and I would want to know everything.  I hope with all my heart curiosity is a family trait and my grandmother’s sisters feel the same way.  I would never have done it if I didn’t have the best of intentions.

 

The Phone Call.

At 3.30pm New Zealand time I called the lady I had a hunch was my great aunt.  Spending about 15 minutes preparing had really got my heart racing, but at least I had a good list of questions, well spaced so I could write notes to her answers. 

Very early in the conversation she mentioned that her sister had found her mother’s birth certificate.  It said:  “Evelyn Ridgway, born 1910, Father: Oliver, Mother: Ellen formerly Parsons, Taunton Somerset”.  This was my great-grandmother.  This lady was my great aunt.  I was so relieved I almost forgot I was supposed to be carrying out a conversation.

We talked about lots of things, but I didn’t tell her about her adopted sister.  Since I talked to her last, I’ve spent 3 days trying to decide whether it would be a good thing to tell her…or better to let sleeping dogs lie.  Even though it is likely to upset her and her sister, I think I will tell her in a letter.  I promised to send them copies of our family tree, so that would be the perfect opportunity to break the news.  I will write a cover letter about the family tree, enclose another letter and documentation about Olwyn’s adoption in a separate envelope and in another envelope I will inclose photos and descriptions of the nieces and nephews they didn’t know about. 

I’d love to tell you every little detail about our half-hour conversation.  However, I don’t think it would be very fair on her, and I need to decide which parts are relevant to the story.  You’ll get the most exciting parts in posts over the next couple of days. 

Probably the most compelling part was that my great aunt apparently didn’t know about Olwyn, but had a sense that there was something that had happened in the past, and that her mother had had a very hard life.  She mentioned a trip to Australia with her mother when she was quite young, where she had a sense her mother was searching for something or someone.  And then there was the box of photos her mother had given her.  She didn’t recognise some of the people in the photos, especially the news clipping of two people standing together.  What I wouldn’t give to see those photos.  I hope I get to some day. 

So, now I know where Evelyn ended up.  She lived and died in New Zealand.  But there are so many questions yet to be answered.  I still feel compelled to find out what really ‘happened’ to Evelyn…and to tell the story. 

Just pick up the phone…

 

Late last night I posted a message on RootsChat.com asking for advice on what I should do about calling the person I suspected to by my great aunt. 

 

All I had was a hunch, a name and a number.  I didn’t even know if the person listed in the NZ online white pages was a woman.  If it turned out to by my great aunt I could count myself very lucky. 

 

Lots of wonderful RootsChatters responded with some really great advice, but I was torn between taking things slowly and just picking up the phone as advocated by my husband and the certain family member who usually keeps my feet on the ground. 

 

In the end I decided to ring the number and establish if the person was my great aunt, and then write a letter explaining how our families were connected.  I realised that it was really important to choose my words carefully in order to make the person on the other end of the phone feel as comfortable as possible. 

 

Before I rang, I wrote down a few notes of things to say in order to explain myself (without any rude shocks) – just in case, as I still wasn’t convinced I was going to have any success.

 

The following is what happened, New Zealand time:

1pm     No one home.  No answering machine.

2pm     No one home.  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea

3pm     Still no one home.  I’m starting to think this is a working person – not a lady of retirement age

5.30pm            A man answers…my heart sinks – it mustn’t be the right person after all.

 

I identified myself and stated who I was looking for. 

The man said she was a little busy, if I could just wait a while.  My heart skipped a beat.  I thought time must have been standing still, but she answered quite quickly and I was taken a little aback.  She sounded exactly as I expected.

 

Identifying myself again, I explained I was researching my family tree and had reason to believe that our families may be connected.  She sounded interested. 

I then explained that I was currently researching Evelyn Ridgway, but I had lost track of her family in England.  Then she told me that her mother’s name was Evelyn Ridgway, and that she had been born in England.  (Heart beating very fast).

What followed was a brief conversation where we both volunteered little snippets of information to try to establish if our families were connected.

 

Basically, this lady was lovely.  She wasn’t able to remember some key bits of information that would have confirmed her relationship as my great aunt, but I’m 90% sure she is.  She also assured me her sister would be ringing on Friday, and she would ask her the same questions.  I would then ring her back on Saturday afternoon to find out if her sister knew any more.  I am anticipating that I will be able to say definitively that this woman is my great aunt on Saturday afternoon.

 

However, I won’t be so bold as to blurt out a long-lost adopted sister at this point.  I believe it would be too much of a rude shock and inappropriate.  Instead I’ll write a letter that tactfully explains everything I have found out, including some of the documentation to help verify my claims.  I hope once she reads it her mother’s past will be less important than what she has to gain from acknowledging our relationship.

 

I’ve deliberately been a little vague in this post.  I don’t want to write too much just in case it becomes an issue later on.  The last thing I want is to make this lovely lady feel lied to, or betrayed, or scammed with unsolicited advances.  I want to tread lightly, as I can’t possibly imagine how it would feel to find out a lifetime of beliefs about your family were incomplete because of what may have been withheld. 

 

It certainly sounded like this lady wasn’t aware of an adopted sister.  It didn’t sound like she had Alzheimer’s, and it didn’t sound like she had a very big family.  In fact, she stated that it was just her sister and her.  We rang off the conversation by saying we both looked forward my phone call on Saturday, and wouldn’t it be lovely if we found we were related? 

 

With all that in mind, I don’t think I will post again until Saturday.  I’m going to concentrate on thinking this situation through and coming up with strategies that will avoid as much ugliness as possible.  Hopefully I’ll find ways to show this lady that she has a lot to gain from this – a loving family. 

Following the Follow-up

Today I followed up the following:

• The Salvation Army family tracing service.  It isn’t going to be an option.  It only traces known family that has lost touch and doesn’t usually ‘do’ adoptions. 
• Ellen & Oliver Ridgway’s marriage certificate.  It’s ordered and on the way.  Hopefully I’ll be able to use it to trace the family back on both sides to determine if Alzheimer’s is a factor in the lives of my grandmother’s ancestors
• Oliver’s movements post 1931.  We know he took Evelyn back to England (or so the family story goes), so I should be able to find a trip back to Australia if he didn’t die in England.  (As I said earlier, I don’t think he did die in England as I couldn’t find a likely candidate after looking at every single Ridgway death between 1931 and 1985).  So, I went back to the place where I found passenger lists for Evelyn and Ellen to come to Australia.  On findmypast.com I found an Oliver Ridgway born 1885 travelling to Sydney from London in 1938.  The last known appearance of Oliver is NSW in 1938.  But he didn’t die there…so where to now?  I think I found his brother travelling to QLD the previous year, so the next chance I get I’ll go an look up microfiche records one-by-one, year-by-year for Oliver’s death in that state.  It’s going to take weeks, as I won’t get down to the family history centre for a while.  Anyway, I may not need to as I have another avenue of research….

In my last post I said that I had a hunch that Evelyn Ridgway married in 1936 in England, as I had found a marriage index for a woman that fitted Evelyn’s description.  Following up on the hunch I trawled through hours and hours of birth, death and marriage indexes trying to find evidence of what happened to the family that this Evelyn Ridgway created.  Apart from the marriage and the birth of two daughters, this family also seemed to vanish without a trace.

 

This was a little too ‘déjà vu’, given that Evelyn’s father Oliver had also disappeared from the records about the same time as he (possibly) travelled back to Australia in 1938.  This got me thinking, so I went back to the passenger lists and found something remarkable. 

 

If our Evelyn married and started this family, then the whole family migrated to New Zealand in 1951. 

 

In my head, the story sounds like this:  After Evelyn adopted out her illegitimate daughter Olwyn (my grandmother), she went back to England for a few years before marrying in 1936.  She had a daughter in 1937, whom she gave the same name as Olwyn was known by in her adopted family.  Along came the Second World War and things were on hold for a while, before the war drawing to a close and the birth of another daughter in 1944.  (This daughter has a very unusual name, so shouldn’t be too hard to trace).  The family migrated in 1951, settling in New Zealand. 

 

The only problem is I have no documentation to be 100% certain that this Evelyn is Evelyn Ridgway, born 1910 Taunton England, my great-grandmother.  I only have speculation, excitement and a set of dates and names that match exactly. 

 

Getting a little ahead of myself, I used the online NZ White pages and looked up the family.  I found a name, address and phone number of a person who may or may not be the daughter born in 1944. 

 

And now the question is: Should I call and see if that person is my Aunt?