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My Grandfather's surname was Groves. His name is Frederick Ernest Groves. I beleive he was born in or around 14th February between 1910,11,12 or 13 (place of birth - unknown) - Died:1978. I have been tring to find him on census / other records without success - (I can not locate any birth details). I have been told that a lot of his family died during the 1st World War. I have been told that he had a flower stall / shop on Broadway Market, London Fields in Hackney, London. I do know he was in The British Army & served in Northern Ireland and worked in engineering after leaving the Army. I have also been told that his family had Yorkshire connections. I would welcome any advise / information to enable me to find any records on him. Help!
Thanking you in advance for any assistance provided.
Regards
Mr K Shiels

You should start with locating his marriage certificate this will give you his father's name (if he had one) and occupation.

I may have just found his death which gives his birth date as 11/2/1910

Death's Jan-Mar 1978
Groves Frederick Ernest 11/2/1910 District Poplar/B Green vol 14 page 1269

a quick search of the 1911 census brought up this


HOUSEHOLD GROVES KATE F 1881 30 Bethnal Green London
HOUSEHOLD GROVES ALFRED M 1880 31 Bethnal Green London
HOUSEHOLD GROVES ALFRED M 1903 8 Bethnal Green London
HOUSEHOLD GROVES EMILY F 1906 5 Bethnal Green London
HOUSEHOLD GROVES FREDERICK M 1910 1 Bethnal Green London

You have looked for births at FreeBMD?

http://www.freebmd.org.uk (click the red Search)

There were three Frederick E Groves-s born 1909-1915. Only the certificate would tell what the middle name was. (One has been mistranscribed somehow at FreeBMD, so you would have to check the volume and page numbers on the original image.)

From the fact that you have been told he was in London, and that a lot of his family died during WWI, this one looks the most likely, one might think:

Births Sep 1911
GROVES Frederick E (Groves) Wandsworth 1d 1416

What that indicates is that the mother of that FEG was not married.

Do get his marriage certificate, as Samspade says. If that is his birth, and he knew his father, he might have given a name, but probably not. If you can give his wife's name and a reasonable approximation of the date, and you don't have Ancestry access, someone here can find the registration info.

Do you have his date of death? It's possible that the death record gives an accurate year of birth.

According to his death registration he was born 11 Feb 1910

Mar qtr 1978
Frederick Ernest Groves dob 11th Feb 1910 Poplar/B.Grn 14 1269

Aha, Samspade's 1911 Frederick would be this one:

Births Dec 1909
Groves Frederick Bethnal G. 1c 166

It's certainly possible that he was registered w/o a middle name.

My hunch is that he's the 1911 Frederick though.

Aha.

Births Mar 1911
Groves Frederick E Wolverhampton 6b 513

Not Wolverhampton -- HACKNEY.
Not 6b, 1b.

Someone looked at the wrong line.

So that one's a very good bet.

So many great minds.

I've already submitted the correction to FreeBMD, so we can stand down!

SomersetGirl -- see upthread. Samspade posted that household, but I think that's the one registered in Bethnal Green Dec1909. (oops, I said 1910, meant 1909, fixed)

Oops, maybe not.

Deaths Mar 1911
Groves Frederick 1 Bethnal G. 1c 93

Re the 1911 household

Marriages Mar 1902
Casey Katharine Bethnal G. 1c 246
Groves Alfred Henry Bethnal G. 1c 246


So the thing to do is find Frederick's marriage, get the certificate, and see whether his father was Alfred.

Evie
his death details say 11/2/1910 so he wouldn't have been registered in 1909.
IF the informant on his death has his date of birth correct then he should be in the first or perhaps the second quarter of 1910.

Hmm, so the one in the 1911 census is the one registered in Dec 1909, and the one who died Mar 1911 is ...? There isn't a perfect match that I see. The only birth registered in Mar Q 1910 was Frederick John in Eastry.

edit - I completely misunderstood, thought "he" was the one who died in 1911.

"He" is "our" Frederick, I get it. Same problem, though - no matching birth registration.

And that's assuming he / his family knew his birthdate. Might not be a good assumption. ;)

Who's your bet??

haha glad I don't have to bet on it!

the only birth I can see(that might fit) in the first quarter of 1910 is Ernest Groves bethnal green.
umm it could be possible that he swapped his names around?Think its best to wait until the marriage cert has been brought.

If I had to bet i'd go with the 1911 census one.

Here's something I just discovered.

Middle names were included in the index for the first two quarters of 1910. Starting in the third quarter, it was middle initials only.

(I searched for Frederick Ernest births, and got only Mar and Jun quarter results.)

So if he was registered in the first or second quarters of 1910 (born Feb 1910), he would presumably have been registered as Frederick Ernest.

So ... I wonder whether his mother was unmarried and Groves was his father's name, and it was given to him as a middle name which he then used as a surname. Not unheard of.

Births Mar 1910
LEGG Frederick Ernest G Romford 4a 605
SCRUTTON Frederick Ernest G Colchester 4a 765

edit to add:

Deaths Mar 1910
Scrutton Frederick E G 0 Colchester 4a 419


I actually think it's more likely that his birthdate wasn't accurate on his death record. ;)

That's what I think. I wonder if he didn't have a middle name until his baptism?not unheard of and is still done today.

Just to add another slight possibility in 1911:

GROVES FRED M 1909 2 Edmonton Middlesex
GROVES FRED M 1877 34 Edmonton Middlesex
GROVES EDITH F 1884 27 Edmonton Middlesex
GROVES EDITH F 1907 4 Edmonton Middlesex
GROVES LILIAN F 1911 1 MONTH Edmonton Middlesex