Jayne, Do you have any other details on the marriage certificate, e.g. father's occupation, witnesses (who are often siblings or other relatives) - these might give you clues that could help you pin down the father. FreeBMD is a very useful resource if you're not familiar with it (http://freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl). The only Frank White I could find there in 1927 in the Leeds area is one born in Hunslet (which is now a suburb of Leeds but formerly a separate district) in April-June 1927. Assuming the age given on the marriage certificate is accurate, this is most likely your man (though of course you can never be sure of anything in genealogy - e.g. he could have moved to Leeds from somewhere else). It also gives his mother's maiden name (Lee) so you can trace the marriage too from FreeBMD. In fact the FreeBMD entry for this is misleading - it gives a marriage of Frank White to someone called Lee in "Holbeach", July-Sept 1922, but there is no matching entry for the spouse. However I checked with Ancestry and it gives a marriage in the same period to "White" in Holbeck, which does make sense as Holbeck is also south of Leeds, near Hunslet, so it looks as if the entry for Frank White has been mis-transcribed (Holbeach is quite a way from Leeds, in Lincolnshire). You can send off for the relevant certificates directly to the GRO online, using the references in FreeBMD - they've just put the price up to £9. (My apologies if you already know all this - I gather you're new to the list but I don't know if this also means you're new to genealogy!). If you want to contact me off-list I'd be happy to assist further. Best wishes Steve -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jayne England Sent: 16 March 2010 13:33 To: [email protected] Subject: [WRY] Marco Pierre WHITE Dear list members, I am new to this list and hoping someone can advise me. I am researching a family tale that suggests there is a distant family connection to this well known Leeds chef. The story goes on to say the connection arises through MPW's paternal line - the WHITE family. I have a copy of the marriage cert for MPW's parents and therein lies my problem. Marco's father was named Frank WHITE, the son of Frank WHITE according to his marriage cert. His age given on marriage would suggest the year of birth as 1927. I have contacted Leeds Register Office and they have searched for the birth of a Frank White, with father named Frank +/- 2 years either side of 1927 and come up with TWO options. Both born in Leeds and both in 1927. So now I am stumped as to which one is the correct set of parents! I also do not know the names if any, of siblings to MWP's father, so can't even work out who the parents were via his siblings. I have tried a search of google etc but cannot find anything that shows the genealogical "tree" of this celebrity, so if anyone could point me in the right direction, or can advise me on how to differentiate between the two sets of parents, I would be pleased to hear from you. I live in the West Country, so do not have access to local archives, libraries etc in Yorkshire, so any searching I need to do has to be done remotely. Thank you! Jayne Some useful websites - FREECEN - http://www.freecen.org.uk/ FREEBMD - http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/ Want to know where a place in Yorkshire is - Try Genuki http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ ------------------------------- 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

On 16 Mar 2010 at 15:27, Steve Bamford wrote: > Jayne, > > Do you have any other details on the marriage certificate, e.g. > father's occupation, witnesses (who are often siblings or other > relatives) - these might give you clues that could help you pin down > the father. > > FreeBMD is a very useful resource if you're not familiar with it > (http://freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl). The only Frank White I could > find there in 1927 in the Leeds area is one born in Hunslet (which is > now a suburb of Leeds but formerly a separate district) in April-June > 1927. Assuming the age given on the marriage certificate is accurate, > this is most likely your man (though of course you can never be sure > of anything in genealogy - e.g. he could have moved to Leeds from > somewhere else). It also gives his mother's maiden name (Lee) so you > can trace the marriage too from FreeBMD. In fact the FreeBMD entry > for this is misleading - it gives a marriage of Frank White to someone > called Lee in "Holbeach", July-Sept 1922, but there is no matching > entry for the spouse. However I checked with Ancestry and it gives a > marriage in the same period to "White" in Holbeck, which does make > sense as Holbeck is also south of Leeds, near Hunslet, so it looks as > if the entry for Frank White has been mis-transcribed (Holbeach is > quite a way from Leeds, in Lincolnshire). > Yes, the FreeBMD entry for the marriage has indeed been mistranscribed as having taken place at Holbeach, Lincs, which explains why I couldn't initially find it. I did find an entry for Nellie Lee at HOLBECK in the same quarter with a matching spouse, WHITE, but no entry for Frank. If you look again at the FreeBMD entry you will see that somebody has added a postem with the appropriate correction. However, this was not quite the proper way to do it. There is a facility for making a correction that makes it permanent. As a matter of interest, I always try and do this if I see an error at FreeBMD and contribute a correction. I strongly urge everybody to do this as well, as it can only help us all. However, if you are correcting a FreeBMD entry do be careful to read the rules! Normally, about the only source they will accept is one that comes from the GRO fiche and if that is clearly wrong, you can't change it! For instance, only yesterday I found a marriage where one party's surname was given as DOWNEI. I knew for a fact from the censuses that the name should have been DOWNIE but it clearly been mistranscribed by a GRO clerk in the 1850s. In genealogy, an error in the original source is NOT a transcription error, so there was no point in my sending a correction. -- 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