Hi Les, Was this child older or younger than your grandmother? Do you have any clues as to his date of birth? After my mother died I found a photograph among her possessions of a young man that no-one in the family knew anything about, although it is inscribed to her from her brother Ernie. Later when searching for graves in a churchyard where my mother had vaguely said members of the family were buried I found a small headstone with his name on it which identified him as being the son of my grandparents. It eventually turned out that he was my grandmother's first child born two years before she was married. He was not however my grandfather's child as I have a record of when my grandmother first 'walked out' with him which was post the birth of this child. He was obviously brought up as my mother's brother but he died in the 1920s and she never mentioned a word about him to me and none of my cousins or relatives had ever heard of him either! Why it should all have been so secret I have no idea but obviously he was sort of adopted by my grandfather as his grave marker identifies him as being Ernest Peachey BALLS, my grandmother's maiden name was PEACHEY and my grandfather was Simon BALLS. I don't know if that is of any help to you, but it may be that the relationship of your mother to her ' possibly adopted' brother was closer than you think. People were very concerned about keeping up appearances then, but my mother must have wanted me to find out as she also left me letters and postcards which refer to her brother Ernest. Pauline Taylor. Colchester. Britain's First City. -------------------------------------------------- From: <ljhewett@ihug.co.nz> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 9:16 PM To: <middlesex_county_uk@rootsweb.com> Subject: [MDX] ADOPTION RECORDS ? > I was wondering if you know if it's possible to trace adoption records > - > probably from around 1915/20? There is a family member on my paternal > grandmother's side who was apparently a relation (possibly cousin) but > was > adopted by my GGM and brought up with my grandmother as her brother. > From > what I know it was kept very quiet and no one seems to know what his > surname was pre-adoption, so I don't have much to go on. Les H., > Napier, > New Zealand. > . > ************************************** > Send your List messages using *PLAIN TEXT* and always *DELETE* superfluous > old messages in replies. Only include the one to which you are replying. > > *MEANINGFUL Subject Lines* ie who, what, where, when, with SURNAMES in > CAPITAL letters. > > List Admin can be contacted at: Middlesex_County_UK-admin@rootsweb.com > > The archives can be found at: > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index?list=middlesex_county_uk > > . > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > MIDDLESEX_COUNTY_UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

HI Les, Following on from my earlier message, and also from what Pauline has written to you. You could try to find a birth registration on FreeBMD using the child's first name and your Gt. Grandmother's maiden name, perhaps prior to the birth of your grandmother. It all depends on how old the child was in the record that you have found him in. Another thought is that your Gt. Grandfather might have had a child by another woman and brought the child home for his wife to bring up as her own? The fact that you say it was all kept very quiet seems to point to the child being illegitimate within the family to me. If for instance the child's parents had died, or his mother just abandoned him or something, and your family took him in out of kindness then why keep it so quiet? If there was no family shame about it then why the secrecy? If it were me I would start by looking for a birth reg. on FreeBMD under the family name and see where that leads. If the child has a fairly uncommon first name and you have an idea of his year of birth and where he was born you could also try searching FreeBMD with just those details but that could be a long job of work. Good Luck with it, if you need some help from the list you would need to post some details but not if the person or people concerned might still be living of course. Regards Jenny DeAngelis Pauline Taylor wrote:- <<I don't know if that is of any help to you, but it may be that the relationship of your mother to her ' possibly adopted' brother was closer than you think. People were very concerned about keeping up appearances then, but my mother must have wanted me to find out as she also left me letters and postcards which refer to her brother Ernest.>> Les wrote:- <<> probably from around 1915/20? There is a family member on my paternal > grandmother's side who was apparently a relation (possibly cousin) but > was> adopted by my GGM and brought up with my grandmother as her brother. > From what I know it was kept very quiet and no one seems to know what his > surname was pre-adoption, so I don't have much to go on. Les H.>>,