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I,M TRYING TO FIND DESCENDANTS OF MY HUSBAND HIS UNCLE EMIGRATED TO CANADA ABOUT 1920-30S THE UNCLE WAS BORN IN THE SUDBURY SUFFOLK AREA HIS NAME MEDCALF,. HIS FATHER WAS NATHANIEL, MOTHERS WAS MARIA THERE WERE LOTS OF CHILDREN SO DON,T KNOW HIS FIRST NAME MY HUSBAND CAN VAGUELY REMEMBER TWO COUSINS COMING TO ENGLAND IN WW2 THEY WERE IN THE FORCES HE THINKS THEY WERE KILL IN ACTION,HE WAS ONLY A CHILD SO CAN,T REMEMBER MUCH HIS 78 YEARS NOW AND WOULD REALLY LIKE TO KNOW IF HE STILL HAS KIN CANADA AND IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN YOUR ROOTS MAYBE I CAN HELP YOU I,VE DONE SOME RESEARCH FOR THE FAMILY TREE IF YOU ARE PART OF THIS CLAN PLEASE EMAIL ME JOAN

There were no Canadian soldiers named Medcalf killed in WW2.

THANK YOU MARGARET FOR YOUR REPLY AS I SAID MY HUSBAND WAS A CHILD IN THE WW2 SO HE MUST HAVE GOT IT WRONG BUT HE SAID HE CAN REMEMBER HIS COUSINS COMING TO ENGLAND SO THEY MUST HAVE SURVIVED AND RETURN HOME ,MAYBE THEY HAD CHILDREN IF SO THEY MIGHT SEE MY MESSAGE ,I,LL KEEP HOPING ANYWAY. REGARDS ,JOAN MEDCALF

HI SUZI SORRY I DON,T HAVE ANY CERTIFICATES BUT I FOUND NATHANIEL ON ANCESTRY CO UK UNDER METCALF CENSUS 1861 THAT GIVES HIS WIFES FIRST NAME AND HIS CHILDRENS AS WELL, MY HUSBAND FATHER Was ARTHUR CHARLES BORN ON1886 .WILL DO AS YOU SUGGEST AND LOOK AT CWGC SITE MANY THANKS REGARDS JOAN MEDCALF

hi suzanne did has you suggested went to cwgc site did,nt fine anything there so tried METCALFE ,THERE IS AN ANDREW RUSSELL AGED 19 DIED ON THE 27/12/43.MY HUSBAND HAS A BROTHER NAMED RUSSELL ,IT COULD BE A COINCIDENCE.MY HUSBAND HAD AN UNCLE WILLIAM WHICH WAS ANDREWS FATHERS NAME TO .IS THERE A WAY OF FINDING OUT IF THEY SPELT THE SURNAME WRONG REGARDS JOAN

Did you look at the details by clicking on his name, Joan?

"Son of William Gordon Metcalfe and Elizebeth Meek Metcalfe, of Vernon, British Columbia."

That doesn't sound like yours, unfortunately.

Could you do us a favour and stop typing in all capitals? It is much too hard to read.


edit -- sorry, I was confused. The person you're looking for *could* have had a father William?

Since that person is included in the Book of Remembrance and thus Canada's official records, it's very unlikely that the surname would be mistaken like that.

Perhaps the family had changed the spelling of the name. I checked birth and marriage records in British Columbia, and the 1911 census, and couldn't find any names to match the parents.

I have dealt with a very helpful person recently about an actual spelling mistake in the transcription from the book of remembrance -- an "i" mistaken for an "l", or vice versa, I think it was. I don't like to bother him unless there is some real reason to think that this person could be your relation, so let's leave it for a bit and see whether anything else turns up.

If the uncle emigrated in the 1920s-30s, he was an adult, I'm assuming. If he had a son who fought in WWII, he must have been born not much later than 1900, or before.

So his parents -- Nathaniel Medcalf and Maria -- must have been married by about 1900. Oh, hold on, they were married by 1861, per the census you referred to.

Here we are; there's a mistake in the transcription at FreeBMD:


Marriages Jun 1853
Metcalf Nathan Sudbury 4a 336
-- wrong page number

Marriages Jun 1853
French Maria Sudbury 4a 556


Your husband's father was born in 1886 -- but Maria would have been at least 50 then! Are you sure you have these generations straight??

Your husband is 78 now, if I'm following, so he was born about 1929ish.


A couple who were married in 1861 had a son whose son fought in WWII. That just seems a little farfetched! It's at least 100 years from when they were born to WWII.


Name: Arthur Charles Medcalf
Year of Registration: 1886
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: Sudbury
County: Essex, Suffolk
Volume: 4a
Page: 646

This must be him in the 1891 census:

Name: Arthur C Medcalf
Age: 4
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1887
Relation: Son
Father's Name: William
Mother's Name: Emma
Gender: Male
Where born: Ballingdon, Essex, England

Civil Parish: Ballingdon Cum Brundon
Ecclesiastical parish: Ballingdon
Town: Ballingdon Cum Brundon
County/Island: Suffolk


Just trying to get us sorted out here!

It looks like Arthur Charles Medcalf was maybe the *grandson* of Nathaniel and Maria.

So it must be one of his brothers who is the father of the soldier who died in WWII.

The mother in that household is Maria Medcalf:

Name: Maria E Medcalf
Age: 59
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1832
Relation: Mother
Gender: Female
Where born: Ballingdon, Essex, England

but she isn't the mother of Arthur, she's his grandmother. It goes like this:


Maria E Medcalf 59
William Medcalf 35 - son of Maria
Emma Medcalf 32 - wife of William
Albert A Medcalf 10
Arthur C Medcalf 4
Clement Medcalf 10
Herbert H Medcalf 2
Maurice W Medcalf 7
May Ethel Medcalf 10/12
Torguil H Medcalf 6
Henry H Medcalf 27 - son of Maria, brother of William


Here is the family in 1871:

Maria Medcalf 39 - widowed mother
Arthur Medcalf 12
Henry Medcalf 7
Maurice Medcalf 10
William Medcalf 15


Okay! So your husband's uncle, the father of the soldier, has to be a son of one of those sons!!

Arthur
Henry
Maurice
William

William had children in 1891. All of his children would have been too old to be in WWII, surely.

cont'd

No, I'm still confused ...

Your husband's father was Arthur Charles Medcalf born 1886. He is the son of William in the 1891 household above.

So your husband's uncle would be one of the other sons of William.

In 1891, they were:


Albert A Medcalf 10
Clement Medcalf 10
Herbert H Medcalf 2
Maurice W Medcalf 7
Torguil H Medcalf 6 (I can't tell what that actually says)


I am truly sorry about the confusion, but the basic problem was that you left out a whole generation -- Arthur Charles Medcalf was the grandson of Nathaniel and Maria, not the son.


Me, I have to take a break. Do you want to check with your husband whether any of those five names ring any bell with him?

One more fix -- these are William's sons in the 1901 census; more of them than before:


Albert Medcalf 20

Arthur Medcalf 14

Frederick Medcalf 1

Harbert Medcalf 12

Maurice Medcalf 17

Torguill Medcalf 16

William Medcalf 6



Whether Frederick was the last of them, who knows?!

These are the male Medcalfs who appear on passenger lists at FindMyPast, travelling from England to Canada between 1920 and 1939:


MEDCALF 29 M 1920 Liverpool Canada Montreal
MEDCALF A 34 M 1920 Liverpool Canada Quebec
MEDCALF Albert 4 M 1921 Glasgow Canada Montreal
MEDCALF Benkam 6 M 1927 Southampton Canada Quebec
MEDCALF David 25 M 1928 Liverpool Canada Halifax
MEDCALF Denis 15 M 1926 Liverpool Canada Quebec
MEDCALF Denis 15 M 1926 Liverpool Canada Quebec
MEDCALF Edgar 25 M 1924 Liverpool Canada Montreal
MEDCALF Edgar 25 M 1924 Liverpool Canada Montreal
MEDCALF Edgar 34 M 1924 Southampton Canada Montreal
MEDCALF Edgar 31 M 1928 Southampton Canada Saint John Nb
MEDCALF Edgar 33 M 1929 Liverpool Canada Saint John Nb
MEDCALF Edward 31 M 1929 Liverpool Canada Saint John Nb
MEDCALF Edward 31 M 1929 Liverpool Canada Saint John Nb
MEDCALF Edwin 27 M 1924 Liverpool Canada Montreal
MEDCALF Eric 23 M 1937 Southampton Canada Quebec
MEDCALF Frank 39 M 1927 Southampton Canada Quebec
MEDCALF Jack 3 M 1930 Southampton Canada Montreal
MEDCALF John 6 M 1921 Glasgow Canada Montreal
MEDCALF Percy 18 M 1927 Liverpool Canada Saint John Nb
MEDCALF Peter 2 M 1927 Southampton Canada Quebec
MEDCALF Stanley 23 M 1926 Southampton Canada Halifax
MEDCALF Victor 30 M 1924 Liverpool Canada Montreal
MEDCALF William Harold 49 M 1925 Southampton Canada Quebec


If your husband wants to see how any of them sounds too.

The number after their name is their age. And actually, it looks like the list really goes up to only 1930, so there's a very good chance it doesn't cover your husband's people.

Joan -- are you related to, or have you contacted, the other people at GR who have these people in their trees?

The extremely, extremely annoying thing is that I just did a search for Clement Medcalf, son of William, and found that you have him in your tree. You have several of the other brothers there too, as do other people. (Just search trees for Medcalf born in Ballingdon.)

So what I don't understand is why you were so confused about how these people were related ... and why you didn't give us the names that you have, to start with ...

Two last points for now:


If you search for Medcalf at the Commonwealth site, there are a couple of names that sound especially like they could be part of your husband's family -- especially Charles William Arthur Medcalf.

It could be that even if your husband's cousins were living in Canada, they enrolled in the armed forces in England, as Margaret said: still considering themselves English.



You can search the Canadian telephone directory on line:

http://findaperson.canada-411.ca/person

Just go there and search for surname Medcalf.

There are only 49 Medcalf listings in all of Canada.

If I were you, I might print out 49 copies of a letter explaining who your husband is looking for, and send them off to Canada!

Joan has found her Canadian cousins, Thank You one and all.

Well that's really nice to know. I guess.

I wonder whether I ever heard from Joan after all the time I put in on this ... don't recall offhand.

Nope. Checked my contacts list. Never heard a word from Joan.

So I'm afraid there's not much of a "you're welcome" coming from this end.

janey i,m really very sorry i have,nt answer be fore this , you must think i,m very rude but i have not looked at my community messages for ages i did,nt think any more people were able to help , as you now know kate has found us and it was my husbands aunt who went to canada not an uncle .so now i would like to thank you and hope you forgive me , joan medcalf