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Passey Rd Sparkhill

james houston

james houston

Mr Sparks
Could someone please help, Im looking for the address of a family that lived in Passey Rd Sparkhill in the 1920s.Their names were
Veragh Brooks
Veragh Smith
Harry Smith
Vivian Smith
Derek Smith

Many thanks.
 
On 1935 e roll Vera Jessie Brooks and Vera Smith are listed at 234 Knowle Road.
There is a death registered for a Vera J Brooks aged 64 in 1935
 
James,

I can add a little to what Janice has said, because throughout the 1940s I lived at number 215. Number 234 was close to Stratford Road and on the same side as the River Cole. The WHITE family lived either next door or next door but one with a son Bobby & a younger daughter Dorothy (Dossie), who was living in Solihull last time I checked. I can't remember anything about the BROOKS family, though I remember that my late mother used to talk to them.

Number 234 still exists (just) and is the last house on the right of this link:-
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4...624&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
and the Tile Warehouse now stands on the site of the pharmacy that used to stand on the corner and almost next door on Stratford Road was a newsagent-cum-sweetshop, all gone now of course.

Maurice
 
james houston said:
I know where they were in the 30s , we understood they lived in Passey Rd in the 20s
Click to expand...
Do you have any idea of their ages in the 1920s? I ask because I am not sure if they would show on the e roll - women probably wouldn't and possibly only some men.
 
Hi maurice hope you are well i can,t speak for myself thou not to worry our friends on passy road recons they was there in the thirtys what can you say maurice if they lived there they must have done i have been tracing records since it was last mentionioned suely it must come up some where in ref books or books of history i have got hundreds of old books and i am still searching take care alan Astonian;;;
 
Hi Alan,

Well at 81, it I wake up in the morning that's a nice surprise! :) Seriously, I have both good and bad days, more good than bad I'm pleased to say. I hope you are managing to cope OK. I can vaguely remember Passey Road, but not having friends or relatives there, that is about as far as it goes. The member seeking information doesn't seem to have been around for quite a few weeks, and I've been busy on other projects recently.

I've just trawled the whole of Passey Road Electoral Rolls for both 1925 and 1927 and they certainly aren't there. Before that date, the female residents don't generally show up and we haven't been given and dates of birth for any of them.

Keep smiling Alan! :)

Maurice
 
sospiri said:
James,

I can add a little to what Janice has said, because throughout the 1940s I lived at number 215. Number 234 was close to Stratford Road and on the same side as the River Cole. The WHITE family lived either next door or next door but one with a son Bobby & a younger daughter Dorothy (Dossie), who was living in Solihull last time I checked. I can't remember anything about the BROOKS family, though I remember that my late mother used to talk to them.

Number 234 still exists (just) and is the last house on the right of this link:-
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4435448,-1.8560443,3a,60y,90.05h,85.86t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s9GUpeLWUjYpjxjg5GVnUew!2e0!6s//geo3.ggpht.com/cbk?panoid=9GUpeLWUjYpjxjg5GVnUew&output=thumbnail&cb_client=maps_sv.tactile.gps&thumb=2&w=203&h=100&yaw=57.47624&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
and the Tile Warehouse now stands on the site of the pharmacy that used to stand on the corner and almost next door on Stratford Road was a newsagent-cum-sweetshop, all gone now of course.

Maurice
Click to expand...
 
Vivian Smith ran the newsagents for a number of years with his wife Alice who he married in the late 40s.They sold up in the 50s and moved to the other side of the bridge and ran the sweet shop.They may have ran a shop in Passey Rd between 1925 to 35.
 
sospiri said:
Hi Alan,

Well at 81, it I wake up in the morning that's a nice surprise! :) Seriously, I have both good and bad days, more good than bad I'm pleased to say. I hope you are managing to cope OK. I can vaguely remember Passey Road, but not having friends or relatives there, that is about as far as it goes. The member seeking information doesn't seem to have been around for quite a few weeks, and I've been busy on other projects recently.

I've just trawled the whole of Passey Road Electoral Rolls for both 1925 and 1927 and they certainly aren't there. Before that date, the female residents don't generally show up and we haven't been given and dates of birth for any of them.

Keep smiling Alan! :)

Maurice
Click to expand...
They may have ran a shop in Passey Rd.
 
Hi James,

Thanks for the extra information. A shop would still appear on the Electoral Roll even if they didn't actually live there.

Maurice
 
James,

I've just spent an hour or so trying to work with the additional data that you have supplied. The only 1920s Directory online is that for 1921 and there are only two shops listed for Passey Road at number 29 (Emily HOOPER - grocer) & at number 53 (Margaret Bickmore - shopkeeper).

I've trawled the 1920, 1922, 1925 & 1927 Electoral Rolls (the only ones for the 1920s online) and there are no occurrences of the BROOKS surname and only one for SMITH - number 9 John William SMITH living with Thomas & Margaret JEFFERY in 1927.

Neither can I find any sensible entries on the Passenger Lists in the early 20s. None of the dates you have given tie up with Births, Marriages & Death Indexes either. Sorry, but I am drawing a blank with the information you have provided.

Maurice
 
sospiri said:
James,

I've just spent an hour or so trying to work with the additional data that you have supplied. The only 1920s Directory online is that for 1921 and there are only two shops listed for Passey Road at number 29 (Emily HOOPER - grocer) & at number 53 (Margaret Bickmore - shopkeeper).

I've trawled the 1920, 1922, 1925 & 1927 Electoral Rolls (the only ones for the 1920s online) and there are no occurrences of the BROOKS surname and only one for SMITH - number 9 John William SMITH living with Thomas & Margaret JEFFERY in 1927.

Neither can I find any sensible entries on the Passenger Lists in the early 20s. None of the dates you have given tie up with Births, Marriages & Death Indexes either. Sorry, but I am drawing a blank with the information you have provided.

Maurice
Click to expand...
Thanks for all your effort on this, these are details i have:-
V.J.Deane b. 1871 d 1935
born in Bredicot Worcester e

married John Edwin Bailey b.1868 d.1898
They had 1 daughter
V.G.Bailey b 26/2/1896
in Newbold Verdon Leicester

V.J.Bailey remarried in 1905 to Herbert Brooks.
V.G Bailey married Harry Smith in 1917
They had 2 son's
Vivian and Derek both born in Sheffield
1917 and 1921
They moved to Birmingham in the early 20s
and we were always under the impression that Passey Rd was where they moved to.
I know they were in Knowle Rd by1935
and when Vivian married Alice they moved into a newsagents called V&A Smith on Stratford Rd in the late 40s.
 
James,

I'm out with friends this evening so I will write a fuller reply tomorrow. The main problem is the shortage of data online for the 1920s, SMITH children were still very young and Harry SMITH is a very common name! I am particularly puzzled by Harry SMITH's death in New Zealand. Between 1921 and 1926 there are only two deaths - in 1924 Harry SMITH aged 19, and 1925 Harry SMITH aged 85 - neither compatible with his marriage to Vera G. BAILEY at Sheffield in 1st Qtr 1917. I've also scoured both British and New Zealand newspapers without any luck.

If you're within reasonable distance of the Library of Birmingham, you could search both the Electoral Rolls and Trade Directories in the hope of hitting lucky.

Maurice
 
Hi Janice,

Difficult to be 100% certain, but he is Harry on his marriage entry to Vera Gladys Bailey. Assuming that his age difference to his bride is no more than ten years older, and that he was actually also born in Sheffield, there are still 44 people who have exactly the same name in Sheffield at the time of his marriage! I also searched all the Sheffield-based newspapers from the time of his marriage to the time of the birth of his second son. Whilst there were a few find upstanding people called Harry Smith, such as a councillor and a reverend, there were also a few minor criminals & one arsonist with the same name. That entailed reading each article to see if it named the wife and to make sure that the event referred to Sheffield.

Even if I had the marriage certificate, it most probably said "of full age" or gave a false age. I'd like to know the basis for the "Died in New Zealand" story. I have relatives out there whose grandparents were Brummies and I've also done quite a lot of research for their friends, who had British Jewish ancestors, so I know most of the resouces out there quite well now. I'll just to see if James can tell us any more. But feel free to chip in anything if you can. :)

Maurice
 
sospiri said:
Hi Janice,

Difficult to be 100% certain, but he is Harry on his marriage entry to Vera Gladys Bailey. Assuming that his age difference to his bride is no more than ten years older, and that he was actually also born in Sheffield, there are still 44 people who have exactly the same name in Sheffield at the time of his marriage! I also searched all the Sheffield-based newspapers from the time of his marriage to the time of the birth of his second son. Whilst there were a few find upstanding people called Harry Smith, such as a councillor and a reverend, there were also a few minor criminals & one arsonist with the same name. That entailed reading each article to see if it named the wife and to make sure that the event referred to Sheffield.

Even if I had the marriage certificate, it most probably said "of full age" or gave a false age. I'd like to know the basis for the "Died in New Zealand" story. I have relatives out there whose grandparents were Brummies and I've also done quite a lot of research for their friends, who had British Jewish ancestors, so I know most of the resouces out there quite well now. I'll just to see if James can tell us any more. But feel free to chip in anything if you can. :)

Maurice
Click to expand...
Harry Smith was my wifes Grandfather he has remained a mystery for years.I once saw his name on a friends Ancestry .co.uk site with his death in New Zealand, my wifes father Vivian Smith was unsure whether it
was NZ or Australia but he had definetley left the family and emigrated on assisted passage in 1921.I did see Veragh Gladys and Harry on my friends passenger list prior to 1921 , sadly my friend passed away and never printed details for me. I have a copy of their marriage certicate I'll try and find it.
A person called Oliver Tobias Smith has a family tree on Family.org site and he has traced Harry and his Mother and Father (Harry and Ada ) and he also has Harry s death place as New Zealand. How accurate this is i cannot say.Thanks for all your help in tracing any information of this family mystery.I myself have spent hours on various sites to no avail.Kind Regards Jim Houston
 
Not sure if I have said this before , but the two were often interchangeable. My cousin's son was named Henry after him (as so often happened), but the elder was always called Harry, and the son Henry, to distinguish them
 
Good morning Jim,

I mentioned in post #4 the pharmacy on the corner of Knowle Road and the newsagents next door. Well your wife's father, Vivian Charles SMITH must have served me as a 12 year old boy to sweets, newspapers, and sherbet. Both Arthur Price (the phamacist) and Vivian had the same number - 940 Stratford Road - in the 1949 Kelly's Directory, although Price's entrance was right on the corner of Knowle Road and Stratford Road, and Vivian's entry was definitely on Stratford Road. Amazing coincidence, and sweets were still on the ration then!

Vera Gladys SMITH gave birth to DERRICK in Sheffield in the 4th Qtr 1921, Vol 9c Page 1133, so unless she travelled back from NZ or wherever to have the child, she couldn't have travelled to NZ until very late in 1921 or 1922. Still looking.....

Maurice
 
Mike,

Agreed, but unless he had another forename, of which we have no evidence so far, a further search of NZ Deaths between 1921 and 1926 has only produced Henry SMITHs who were 80 plus years of age when they died.

Maurice
 
I have never seriously looked into ancestry, however I was fortunate in coming across a fifth cousin; my paternal grandmother and her grandfather were brother and sister. She was able to furnish me with a full family history of both my grandparents back to the end of the 17th. century. Some difficulties in researching, I am sure, arise from irregularities. In the case of my father he had two forenames but was known to everyone - except officialdom - as Jack. My grandmother was widowed during WW1 but remarried again. However, her first married name (the same as mine) was never used by her three sons by the first marriage when at school and were always knows by the second husbands surname. Most unlikely to happen today of course. Which illustrates the difficulties that can occur with memories rather than factual archives and other paperwork.
Incidentally, a few people who knew my father often call me Jack. :)
 
mikejee said:
Not sure if I have said this before , but the two were often interchangeable. My cousin's son was named Henry after him (as so often happened), but the elder was always called Harry, and the son Henry, to distinguish them
Click to expand...

The reason I suggested Henry for Harry was that until I did some research my Dad never knew his Uncle Harry was actually John Henry on his birth certificate. As you say, they, like John/Jack are or were interchangeable.
 
Hello everyone who contributed to this search for the mysterious Harry Smith, I have carried on with my Quest since I was on here and have found out a few more facts:-
Harry Smith b 1893
Veragh Gladys b1896
Married 1918
Harry was in R.A.M.C
His address in 1917 is 106
Hunsdon Rd Woolwich
Veragh lived at 83 Bolsover Rd Sheffield
On 18/8/1921 Harry emigrated to New Zealand onboard RMS Remuera landing in Lyttleton on 3/10/1921Where he allegedly died
(Or may have moved on to Australia)
Veragh Gladys and Vera Jessie Brooks moved to Bimingham to Passey Rd as far as I know after 1927
In 1935 they were at 234 Knowle Rd.
So Harry still remains a mystery and So does the story of Passey Rd



Veragh Gladys and her mother Veragh Jessie emoved to Birmingham sometime after 1927
As far as I still know to Passey Rd
 
Hello again,

The 1927 & 1930 Electoral Rolls are the only ones online as far as I know, I haven't checked Ancestry, but the only SMITH in Passey Road was a John William SMITH seemingly living alone in 1927 only. If they were ever in Passey Road, I suggest it was for a very short period and could easily fall between the years I have mentioned. Normally the Electoral Roll forms were completed in the previous October, i.e. October 1926 to appear in the 1927 version. The only reasonably safe way of checking this year by year is from the Rolls themselves in the Library of Birmingham Archives. I'll have another search later this evening and see if I can come up with anything.

Maurice :cool:
 
sospiri said:
Hello again,

The 1927 & 1930 Electoral Rolls are the only ones online as far as I know, I haven't checked Ancestry, but the only SMITH in Passey Road was a John William SMITH seemingly living alone in 1927 only. If they were ever in Passey Road, I suggest it was for a very short period and could easily fall between the years I have mentioned. Normally the Electoral Roll forms were completed in the previous October, i.e. October 1926 to appear in the 1927 version. The only reasonably safe way of checking this year by year is from the Rolls themselves in the Library of Birmingham Archives. I'll have another search later this evening and see if I can come up with anything.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...
Jim Houston
 
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