Finding adoption info (was It's my husband's fault)

[LindaB]

How do I find information about adoptions that took place in the early 1900s' My grand uncle lists his daughter as adopted on the 1911 census (he was single at this time) and on his WW1 pension record as his next of kin. However, I cannot find anything further about her.

 

[Tim]

How do I find information about adoptions that took place in the early 1900s' My grand uncle lists his daughter as adopted on the 1911 census (he was single at this time) and on his WW1 pension record as his next of kin. However, I cannot find anything further about her.

Hi Linda, And welcome to the Forum. Did you check Peter's recent newsletters? I'm sure I read something about adoption?

 

[peter]

How do I find information about adoptions that took place in the early 1900s' My grand uncle lists his daughter as adopted on the 1911 census (he was single at this time) and on his WW1 pension record as his next of kin. However, I cannot find anything further about her.

There was no regulation of adoption until 1927. For a single man to adopt a child would surely have been unusual: assuming he wasn't extremely wealthy we're left with two obviously possibilities - one is that he's the father, and the other is that he is a close relative (eg it's the child of his brother or sister). So I'd suggest looking at those first.

 

[LindaB]

It as always been my view that he was Alice's father but without a mother's name I am struggling to find a birth record. He subsequently married twice, had two other daughters and then, so the family story goes went to Australia. He and his second wife did return to the UK, he died in 1968. I never met him and apart from knowing his name my father never spoke about him as I believe he did not know he had returned to the UK. So, although I have found out quite a bit about him the mystery of Alice still eludes me.