Since my forthright views seem to upset some people on this list and also because I am a believer in total honesty and integrity in family history and genealogical research and "telling it like it is", I thought perhaps I would post my life events details, if only to show that I am no hypocrite when I oppose the ridiculous (in my view) Rootsweb policy of not permitting mention of living people. I was born on 4 July 1940 at St Luke's Hospital, Bradford, Yorkshire. This building was the former Bradford Union workhouse which became a general hospital in the late 1920s. I discovered, to my considerable amusement, that being born there was still regarded as a stigma by silly little people and officials until well into the 1960s to the extent that the Bradford Register Office only identified it with its official address, 217 Horton Lane, which is what appears on my birth certificate with no mention of it being a hospital or former workhouse. Paranoia reigned, even back then! Anyone looking for my birth in the GRO indexes will not find it until the 1st quarter of 1941 when I was registered in Bradford, not once but twice, as Roy Stockdill and also as Roy Midgley, the reason being that Midgley was my mother's maiden name and at the time she wasn't married to my father, Leonard Stockdill. He was at that time still legally married to his first wife, as I subsequently discovered when I started researching my family history about 40 years ago. My dad was a businessman and my mum was then his secretary. My father had also had an illegitimate daughter, my half sister whom I discovered some 30 years ago and with whom I get on extremely well, though she lives in Australia - my dad put himself around a bit! He married my mother in the summer of 1942 after his divorce came through. Technically, they were well outside the requiste period of 42 days when they registered me, but it was wartime and I expect they had other things on their mind. My marriage in Coventry to my wife in 1963 is also easily found in the GRO indexes and so are the births of my two sons in Watford, Hertfordshire. Given my expertise, I can find just about anyone who was born in Britain after 1911. Why am I telling all this to the list? Because, as I have explained, I happen to think that so-called privacy and secrecy in family history is paranoid nonsense when all the records are easily accessible and in the public domain and anyone who thinks privacy is necessary on a mailing list really shouldn't be here at all. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE

I have kept out of this so far, but I agree with Roy that there is a lot of info around. indeed, I am just a couple of years younger and have been tracing downwards from Huguenot ancestors c 1685 to 2005 all the descendants I could find. Amongst others in 1938 I discovered a complicated cover up which I have meticulously untangled, in which, almost certainly a 16 year old gave birth and that child was named as the child of her parents ( unusual surnames and there IS only one marriage) BUT the putative mother was already 50, divorced and remarried, in 1927, the father (grandparents of the 1938 baby) remarried in 1942 with a son born in 1943. Fictitious Christian names were given to the young couple - a clever cover up. I DO have the certificates. Now there were at least 3 voyages, Madeira and Brisbane, and my guess is that the young Mum was brought back to England to have the child adopted in 1939 a year after her birth in Liverpool... A convenient big city in which to "lose" and mask identity not too far from where there were existing roots - Manchester and Midlands. She married with a "clean sheet" in 1945 in London. Now many of those people are probably still alive. I do know the 1943 son is. and he did not reply to my letter although I did not mention this "scandal" That is why some people do not want it all blabbed around the world. It does not bother me - but it does bother many. Jean Wood > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 19:37:09 +0000 > Subject: [NTT] Privacy and nonsense etc > > Since my forthright views seem to upset some people on this list and also because I am a > believer in total honesty and integrity in family history and genealogical research and "telling it > like it is", I thought perhaps I would post my life events details, if only to show that I am no > hypocrite when I oppose the ridiculous (in my view) Rootsweb policy of not permitting > mention of living people. > > I was born on 4 July 1940 at St Luke's Hospital, Bradford, Yorkshire. This building was the > former Bradford Union workhouse which became a general hospital in the late 1920s. I > discovered, to my considerable amusement, that being born there was still regarded as a > stigma by silly little people and officials until well into the 1960s to the extent that the Bradford > Register Office only identified it with its official address, 217 Horton Lane, which is what > appears on my birth certificate with no mention of it being a hospital or former workhouse. > Paranoia reigned, even back then! > > Anyone looking for my birth in the GRO indexes will not find it until the 1st quarter of 1941 > when I was registered in Bradford, not once but twice, as Roy Stockdill and also as Roy > Midgley, the reason being that Midgley was my mother's maiden name and at the time she > wasn't married to my father, Leonard Stockdill. He was at that time still legally married to his > first wife, as I subsequently discovered when I started researching my family history about 40 > years ago. My dad was a businessman and my mum was then his secretary. My father had > also had an illegitimate daughter, my half sister whom I discovered some 30 years ago and > with whom I get on extremely well, though she lives in Australia - my dad put himself around > a bit! He married my mother in the summer of 1942 after his divorce came through. > Technically, they were well outside the requiste period of 42 days when they registered me, > but it was wartime and I expect they had other things on their mind. > > My marriage in Coventry to my wife in 1963 is also easily found in the GRO indexes and so > are the births of my two sons in Watford, Hertfordshire. Given my expertise, I can find just > about anyone who was born in Britain after 1911. > > Why am I telling all this to the list? Because, as I have explained, I happen to think that > so-called privacy and secrecy in family history is paranoid nonsense when all the records are > easily accessible and in the public domain and anyone who thinks privacy is necessary on a > mailing list really shouldn't be here at all. > > -- > Roy Stockdill > Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer > Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html > > "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, > and that is not being talked about." > OSCAR WILDE > > > > > > > > > > > Notts Surname List > > http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~hughw/notts.html > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message