Missing marriage record
I have been tracing the family history of ‘Miss’ Margaret Carr who died in Wimborne, Dorset in 1998 aged 95. She told many stories about her life in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) – she went into Belsen with food, she worked with Churchill in the Cabinet Rooms etc. However when I received her army records I found that Carr was her married name; she was born Ivy Margaret Enoch in 1903. I have found information about her early life once I knew her birth name was Enoch but I am unable to find any information about her marriage.
I am trying to trace the marriage of Ivy Margaret Enoch and Harold John Carr in 1942. In Ivy Margaret’s army records there is a record of a marriage at Waddon, Herts, but I have been unable to find this marriage in any parish register at GRO or anywhere else. I would like to obtain the army records for Harold Carr but am unable to because I cannot find a birth or death for him. In Ivy’s army records it gives the details of his regiment and lists him as her next of kin, but again I have been unable to find anything relating to him.
I have searched virtually every record I can think
of over the past four years to trace this marriage,
without success. Ivy’s family was heavily involved
in horse racing in Newmarket. Does anyone have
any suggestions as to records held in Newmarket
that could help me? I am now clutching at straws! I
have contacted the Horse Racing Museum and
looked at their website and there are a couple of
mentions but nothing to help me further.
Carole Dumbleton
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Editor’s note: Can anyone help? It’s a classic example of 20th century records often being harder to trace than 19th century ones.
Siblings many years apart
The photograph taken in Dunfermline (Periodical,
September 2014, p6) shows a woman with her child
and also her young sibling at her side. The writer
says that large gaps in years between older and
younger siblings happened in Victorian and
Edwardian eras. But I have a similar photo taken in
1947 of my oldest sister and me. There are 16 years
between us and we have a younger brother born
1951 making it 21 years between the eldest and
youngest. A similar late birth in two aunt’s families
also occurred.
Susan Knox
Editor’s note: Thanks Susan. Yes, you’re quite right that large gaps can be found in many eras. My father and aunt are 16 years apart too – and their parents had 16 years between their own ages!