Find Ancestors

Born 1912 (ish) died 1959. Place of birth possibly France. Lived, married and died Abergavenny. Possibly came from France but also resided in Jersey. Widower married Hilda Temperance Davies 22 april 1944 Abergavenny. Does he appear in your tree? May have 11 siblings.

Editing here to add -- Sylvia is now looking for help with finding Jersey BMD records, specifically to find the birth of Albert Francois August Marcelle GERARD (or Girard). (See the 1901 and 1911 census info down the page.)


I'm deleting what I had initially posted here as it my questions have been overtaken by events. ;)

Do you have Albert's father's name from his marriage certificate? The names of any of the siblings?

thankyou for your reply. Very, very comlicated and don't know where to turn to. Albert is my deceased husbands father. I am trying to find his birth certificate and previuos marriages of which there may have been two prior to his marriage to Hilda. Albert and Hilda had 3 sons, Andre, Phillip and Maurice and a daughter Jeanette. Andre and Phillip were both born in Jersey. Not sure about the other two.
Alberts fathers name on marriage certificate is Peter Gerard (gardener domestic)
We believe that some of the names of Alberts siblings are, Emile, Pierre and Adelle/Edelle. From previous marriages he is believed to have had 5 children.
HELP PLEASE

Hi Sylvia - got your PM, and the thread here is absolutely where you should reply. This way the info is available to anyone who might help (and I don't have to toggle back and forth, making me crazy).

I doubt I'm going to be much help here myself ...

Are you in touch with the other children of Albert you name -- Andre, Phillip, Maurice, Jeanette - whichever ones aren't your man? ;)

For instance, there are marriages for an Andre F Gerard, a Maurice A Gerard and a Jeanette Gerard, on a quick search. Many Philips. (The births of Jeanette and Maurice are recorded in Abergavenny, but not the others.)

For the sibs, there is a Pierre JA Gerard marriage in 1946.

You likely don't have Ancestry access, but I'd recommend that you at least take out the 14-day free trial. It could be worth having a browse through the births, marriages and deaths that aren't yet available at FreeBMD, but you could also try there:

http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl

At Ancestry, you want to look at these indexes:

Deaths 1984 - 2005 (transcribed)
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=7579

Marriages 1916 - 2005 (transcribed)
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=8753

Births 1916 – 2005 (transcribed)
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=8782

That way you could read through lists of search results for surname Gerard and see whether any look likely -- it's hard for a third party to browse on someone's behalf like that. ;)

You can try searching those indexes w/o even the free trial subscription just to see what some of the names are, without seeing the date and place details and so on, that you have to pay to see.

If you can identify a marriage for someone of interest, then you can search for children by the surnames of the two spouses.

I checked post-1983 deaths for Emile and Pierre but no luck. At the moment, 1916-1983 isn't searchable at Ancestry, and coverage is spotty at FreeBMD after 1930, but both are catching up and Ancestry's full deaths index is supposed to be available soonish.

If any of that might be useful, let us know!

Albert F died Pontypool, Mar 1959, age 47.

Births of two children in Wales Pmd.

The 1911 census has
[deleted info now known to be irrelevant]

[deleted as the Swansea Gerards seem to be irrelevant]

[deleted as the Swansea Gerards seem to be irrelevant]

But look here! 1901 in Jersey:

Name: Peter Girard
Age in 1901: 36
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1865
Spouse's Name: Marie
Where born: Fs (French Subject), France
OCCUPATION: GARDENER

Civil parish: St Helier
Town: St Helier
County/Island: Jersey


Peter Girard 36
Marie Girard 27 - born France
Jeanne Girard 10 - born France
Augustine Girard 8 - born Guernsey
Adile Girard 2 - it's Adèle- born Jersey St Helier
Pierre Girard 2 Mo - born Jersey St Helier


Those names match up pretty danged well!!

And here I thought I'd be useless. ;)


1911

GIRARD MARIE 1874 37 Jersey
GIRARD ADELE H 1898 13 Jersey
GIRARD PIERRE EMILE 1902 9 Jersey
GIRARD EMILE PIERRE 1906 5 Jersey


I don't have access to details to see Marie's marital status / years married etc.

The question would be where father Peter is, since Albert was born after 1911.

Please tell me that when you said what you believed the names of Albert's siblings to be, you weren't taking them from the same 1911 census I've found!

Hi Janey. Looks like you hit gold. The names I gave you were given to me by a daughter born to Alberts wife ( Hilda ) before she met him. So she is a half sister to my husband Andre. I did not get the names from any census but from a family member. Well done you. This family line I have had set aside for about 5 years as I have been concentrating on my own line.
We did visit Jersey 2 years running looking for clues but the records are very sketchy. Whilst there we asked them to search for a female Gerard who would hva died between 1949 and 1959 and they found an entry for Marie Loiuse Eugenie Dartahenay wife of Pierre Emile Gerard but the e had been crossed out and replaced with an i making it Girard. They gave me a copy of this ladies registration card and it gives her place of birth as Periers Manche France. She married there 20/8/1920. When she entered Jersey 25/08/1920 she came as a french national, married and was a chamber maid.The registration card has her photo and states that she was born 16/12/1872. It shows all her places of employment, some residential, but no mention of Pierre (peter)

Hurray!

So the widowed Marie went back to France and married then returned to Jersey, in August 1920.

What's confusing me though: her death is in the name Girard/Gerard?

What was her name when she returned in 1920? Her husband's name?

And if she was already widowed in 1911, who was actually Albert's father??

I'm gonna go holler for Viv again to get out her 1911 subscription and tell us what it says about Marie and family.

This one ?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GIRARD, Marie Head Married
20 years F 37 1874 Washerwoman Normandy France VIEW
GIRARD, Adele H Daughter F 13 1898 St Helier Jersey VIEW
GIRARD, Pierre Emile Daughter M 9 1902 St Helier Jersey VIEW
GIRARD, Emile Pierre Daughter M 5 1906 Guernsey VIEW
LE PLONGEON, Marie Boarder Married F 39 1872 Domestic Servant Carteret France VIEW
DURAND, Frank Boarder Single M 36 1875 Labourer St Ouens Jersey

fantastic work for one night, thankyou. Will have to go to bed now, head spinning with names, dates etc. Will lay out all the certificates I have tomorrow and ID cards and try to unravel again. Will be in touch. I love a good mystery.....but need sleep.

Aha, married. So maybe Peter/Pierre hadn't died, possibly had preceded her back to France, and was indeed Albert's father.

Ta, Viv!

When do we start whining about needing the 1921 census?

Sylvia - no children recorded with her at the 1920 entry to Jersey?

When you finish here Janey would you pop in to surnames and have a peek at the "Povey "thread please.?

Hi Janey, was so hyped up about the Girards/Gerards that I hardly slept.
Have got out all my paper work and found an old letter from Immigration & Nationality Department ( St. Helier. Jersey) dated may 2000 which states that they believe the date of Marie's marriage to Pierre ( Peter Girard) may have been the date that she obtained a COPY of her marriage certificate and not tyhe date of her actual marriage. She first arrived in Jersey about 1889. The date of 25 august 1920 is the date she registered in Jersey as required by law. Can you tell me the best site to use to find information on Jersey records. Sorry for confusion but at least we have some of the children born before Albert.

Aha, that makes sense, the date she had the certificate issued for the purpose of travelling to Jersey.

Jersey records - bonne chance, eh? ;)

Maybe change your subject line to something like

- Girard/Gerard, help with Jersey records? -

I'm afraid it isn't my area of expertise, and as far as I know the records are generally only available on site. Someone here did do a bit of checking for me (I have a grx2 grfather's sister supposedly born in Jersey) and I'll see whether I can find those messages ...

No luck. Oh, I remember who it is -- sablon. I've hailed her by PM to come and take a look, and hopefully she'll have some ideas.

Thanks Janey will take your advice.

sorry janey, really green at this. will do as you say.

To help you out, I've edited my first post on page one to clarify what you're looking for now.