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Hiring a researcher

CarolB08

CarolB08

LostCousins Member
Hi everyone I am not sure if this is the right part of the site to post this but I can not see that anyone else has asked it before so here goes.
I am thinking about hiring a researcher to help with a particularly tricky brick wall does anyone have any experience of doing this please ? I want to find some one who is registered to do so and honest but really good at what they do. I know about search angels in some facebook groups and have thought of going down that line.
Also does anyone have a bench line of cost for research?
Many thanks.
 
Sorry, no experience of paid help.

Have you asked - here, or in another part of the lostcousins forums (I'm never very sure how to find which one to ask in), or in the newsgroup soc.genealogy.britain (or alt.genealogy or soc.genealogy.ireland say if not British - other 'groups for areas exist), about your brick wall? A lot of people like a challenge.
 
No John I have not asked anywhere else its just a thought, I was hoping that someone on this forum might have some experience and be able to recommend a good researcher.
 
G6JPG (John) said:
Do ask; we might be able to help!
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Thank you for the offer John but my brick wall is a bit complicated to describe in one post :confused: but I will try. My Mother on her marriage was Vera Dorothy Tracey and for years my brother and I researched our grandfathers family but could not find her birth certificate. Then I did a dna test and realised that everything we had built up was pointless because she was not Granddads natural child :eek: so we started again using our matches and again built up a great tree but we can not find a birth certificate for her.
We think her natural parents are William Savage 1868-1938 and Eleanor Florence Moxom 1888-1976 but not sure which is her maternal and paternal line. Eleanor was in service to William in 1911 as a servant so the opportunity was there but it could also be his son. In 1921 mum was living with my grandfather in Brentwood, Essex aged 4 and described as his daughter born Brentwood. Still no hint of a birth certificate, not knowing what her birth name was or where she was actually born hampers the search.
My two closest dna matches are from each side of her presumed parents one at 319cm across 15 segments and the other 262 cm across 9 segments. Both are in Canada and neither are interested in helping or speaking. One told me that she would get to my matches tree when she had finished hers :rolleyes:.
Are you sorry you offered :)
 
Not sorry I asked, though I'm not sure I offered - I expected it was something I probably couldn't help with, but thought someone else might be able to (LC members being generally knowledgeable, and usually helpful if they can)! But let's have a look. (By the way, I have Savages in my data: James of minimal data, Edward born 1631, his daughter Maria baptised 1675 Staffordshire, and another Maria daughter of the above James, she born 1854 Norfolk died 1929 Australia. I'm particularly fond of her marriage, as it's between Savage and Slaughter! Happy to share details of any of them.) Yes, your suggestion of "the opportunity" seems possible - she'd have been about 23 and he about 43 in 1911, but of course we don't know how long she'd been a servant by then - might have been earlier when she was younger. Or later; if the daughter was 4 in 1921 that gives us 1917 or '16. Hmm, during WWI. What sort of address was where she was a servant in 1911 - just a private house, or some sort of stately home/mansion/whatever? (Or something like a hospital, or other place of large employment?) If by any chance any of the latter, might be a source of records to search (employment records etc.; maybe also wartime records of all sorts - including newspapers). The age difference also supports your suggestion that it might be the son. (Though whichever, the family line would be similar, the only question being whether the son's mother is an ancestor.) You say you don't know where she was born: I take it you don't believe the place shown in the 1921 census. Do you know the date of her birth (her birthday for the date [possibly from the 1939 register - check there anyway], and did she know how old she was to clarify whether the year was 1917 or 1916)? I don't know if it's possible to find all the people born on a given day.
Frustrating that the Canadians aren't interested; best hope is maybe that other relatives do a test. I presume you've checked e. g. familysearch to see if the Savage or Moxom families have any other relations (or even if the clandestine relationship can be confirmed [or at least corroborated]).
So - hope I've maybe given you some thoughts of places to look - though I suspect you've already thought of them. But maybe also someone else here can help. You may also like to try other parts of these forums: I don't really know my way round them. I'd also definitely try the newsgroup soc.genealogy.britain, but I know most people these days don't use (or even know about) newsgroups.
Good luck!
 
According to the 1939 register on Findmypast Vera D Tracey was born 5 March 1917, and in 1939 was working as a domestic assistant at Highwood Hospital for Children, Brentwood.
 
Hmm. I was wondering if it's possible to find all the people born on one day, thinking it would be too big - but (with help from Google's AI!) it seems 1917 was a trough, with one source even suggesting - if I'm reading it right - only 771 for the year, of which only 361 females - that's less than one a day! But freebmd.org says 1917Q1/Q2 is over 50,000. Limiting to Vera, Q1, and Essex gets it down to a more manageable number - lots of Veras!, but only about half a dozen with D (and a similar number with no middle initial); that might help? Some are in Romford, which contained Brentwood. Actually only one: Vera D Stainer, MMN Gray. Probably no help. Oh no - Romford only contained Brentwood from 1934 to 1939. But this direction may yield _some_thing!
 
If Vera and her brother Walter were both adopted their Christian names could have been changed by the Traceys, which of course makes it even harder to identify the birth record :confused:
 
Hi , The Vera D Tracey born 5 Mar 1917, found in the 1921 census living with Alfred, Annie and Walter and working at the Children's Hospital in Brentwood in 1939 is listed on the England and Wales Land Army service cards 1939- 1950, her service number is 45385. In 1939 Walter is still with Alfred and Annie at the same address 13 Alfred Road and is listed as Walter L , a gardener. Hope this helps a little.
 
Susan48 said:
If Vera and her brother Walter were both adopted their Christian names could have been changed by the Traceys, which of course makes it even harder to identify the birth record :confused:
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Susan48 This is my main problem I dont know if her names were changed. Believe me; my brother and I (and he is a genius with a photographic memory) have searched the birth records for every permutation of birth surname including mispellings we can think of. I am sure she once told me that her names had been Dorothy Vera but that she did not like Dorothy so changed them, my brother says he thinks she had at least 4 christian names ! We knew she had been fostered but hoped it had been from within the Tracey family but neither of us has a single dna match to support this theory.
 
Heather said:
Hi , The Vera D Tracey born 5 Mar 1917, found in the 1921 census living with Alfred, Annie and Walter and working at the Children's Hospital in Brentwood in 1939 is listed on the England and Wales Land Army service cards 1939- 1950, her service number is 45385. In 1939 Walter is still with Alfred and Annie at the same address 13 Alfred Road and is listed as Walter L , a gardener. Hope this helps a little.
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We already have this information thankyou Heather, the one thing from the 1939 we are waiting for is the redacted name to become public as we do not know who that might be. I once asked findmypast about this when I thought it was Mum but they would not tell me. Mums entry had been hopelessly mistranscribed and it took a lot of lateral searching to find her.
 
G6JPG (John) said:
lots of Veras!,!
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I have written to adoption agencies with no luck mind you I am thinking of trying that again, spoken to Essex Record Office nothing there, the only thing I did find which only deepened my mystery was the school admission register for St Helens Roman Catholic junior school which just gives her Mothers name as Mrs Tracey and gives a Vera as being born on 19th March 1916 ! So was there two Vera Tracey's in 1931 when she seems to have left the district which actually ties in with her "Mother dying and my Granfather remarrying.
 

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I forgot to mention that Mum was not baptised until 1927 inthe Roman Catholic Cathedral in Brentwood when she would have been about 10, now my Grandfathers family were NOT Roman Catholics. It states on the baptism form that her parents were her adoptive parents. Why did they wait so long ? Did they then take advantage of the new law to register her as theirs? I have found no evidence of this.
 
Searching freebmd for: Essex born - Vera 1917 Q1-Q2; Vera 1916 Q1-Q2; Dorothy 1917 Q1-Q2; and Dorothy 1916 Q1-Q2 - each produce a largish, but manageable number of entries. A few with no other initial, lots with one other, a more manageable with two others, and none with three others - but I don't know if that's because freeBMD (or the source they used) didn't record more than three forenames. Several of the Veras had D among the other initials, ditto the Dorothys V.
 
ChalfontR said:
Have you checked for an entry in the adopted children register ?
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To clarify the procedures involved: the Adopted Children Register recorded court orders only. There was a provision in the Adoption of Children Act, 1926 for "existing de facto adoptions" to be brought into the new system, but an application to court was still required. The act itself is here, and it's fairly short (12 pages) and not too hard a read.

The act also covers what was done to the original birth registration: to be marked as "adopted". The linkage of that birth with the adoption was also recorded at the GRO, but such records were to be kept closed, with no index open to the public, and a court order was required to get access. All of these procedures have been changed by later acts, though in some cases not by much.

There are some conditions as to whether an informal adoption could be accepted by the court. And going to court would mean explaining what happened to a load of strangers (though not I think in public). And there may have been costs, though the 1926 Act does not say anything about that. So it does seem unlikely the Traceys would have done it. Unless they valued, or felt they needed, the legal status of parents that the new adoption orders conferred. So I guess the question here is whether there is any evidence of them using or claiming legal rights as Vera's parents at any stage after 1927.
 
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