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Grave for Doris Annie Blake

B

burgerbern

proper brummie kid
Hi everyone, new here found the site by accident while trying to solve this problem for my father in law.

His mum Doris Annie Blake (nee Wilson) died on 19th May 1942 from TB at the City Sanitorium, Yardley Green Road, his dad was working i believe at the Austin Motors Longbridge plant on the order for 365 Horsa Glider fuselages they made between March and dec 1942 (he was a skilled Cabinet maker and according to the death cert a foreman), my father in law asked me if i could find the grave as he was just 16 at the time and after the job on the gliders was completed they moved back to Enfield in Essex, he has never visited the grave and would like to go, i went to the Birmingham council site and clicked on the link for the register search page and it comes up as broken, i have no idea which cemetery she would be in as she died at the City Sanitorium but they lived at 26 Cliff Roak Road, Rendal, Birmingham, I cannot travel up to Birmingham to search as my wife is disabled and i am her full time carer, if anyone is going to any of the cemetries on research in the next few weeks and has the time could you see if you can find the grave, it would be very much appreciated.
 
Hi Burgerbern

There are three cemeteries which come to mind here. Lodge Hill might be worth looking at - it is nearest to Longbridge - you can find the email address on the Lodge Hill Cemetery web site. The next would be Yardley, which is not too far from Yardley Green Road and certainly worth a try. the body may not have been transported back home, you see. It would possibly depend on finance. The final try should be Witton which was the main Municipal Cemetery. All are very busy, it might be worth you ringing, but all email addresses are on the individual cemetery page.

Once you have the grave number and the map of the cemetery, it should be quite straight forward for someone in the area to photograph it for you. I hope this is of some help and that you find the grave - I know how important these things are.

Shortie
 
Thanks Shortie

i will email then one at a time and see if i can find her that way, my father in law is the last of the two generations alive at the time and i recently reminded him of his mum while i was researching my wifes family tree, he has never been to the grave becuse he never found out where it was before his father died suddenly from a fall
 
Hi Bergerbern

If I was you I would email them all on the same day - if they take two weeks to reply, it could be six weeks or more before you hear. The amount of people who do not know where relatives are buried is quite substantial. It's not the most important thing to remember unless they are very close relatives. If she is at none of these cemeteries we have to take a fresh look at the situation - I can often find other people's relatives, but I struggled for a long time with some of my own (including my gt grandparents). Some of mine appear to have just disappeared, but I suppose I will get them in the end.

All the best

Shortie
 
Hi Shortie

i know that would be the best way but i was thinking more about the two peoples time that could be wasted if i hit gold on the first try, time i have plenty off, with being at home and looking after my wife, its one reason i started the family tree lark to pass the time, now i am hooked, i have traced my dads line back to Devon in 1660, i am stuck with my mum as she came from South Africa to marry dad, my wifes maternal and paternal lines i have back to 1800, my father in law had no interest at the beginning was very anti, did not want me digging up the family secrets (oh boy what have i discovered on the way, lol) but when i tried to find out why his mum died in Birmingham as the family we thought had never strayed far from Enfield he started to get interested which led to this, me i am more interested in what his dad was doing with the Horsa glider, lol.

like you i have family that have been abducted by Aliens, i have one family where after the birth of the first 2 children the wife has disappeared and not popped up on any census form for 18 years but on the 1911 her hubby still maintains he is married at 1911 for 22 years, but is living with the kids at his mums , where the wife is i have no idea, perhaps i should get the police to dig up the garden at the last address she was at,

thanks again

burgerbern
 
Hello Burgerbern, Oh how I laughed at your last comment! I had a similar one in my own tree. Not a direct line, but brother of my gt grandfather. The couple separated, but child did not want anything to do with his mother (I know this from his own family), but we think she died in 1913 under her maiden name. We hear from another branch of his family that she was on the stage. Whether this is a euphemism for 'on the game', I do not know but she is not present on any census from 1881 onwards. Her death certificate might reveal something. Family trees, even if they don't reveal anything shocking or surprising, are still interesting, I suspect it is because we are all slightly nosey.

Rather than dig up the garden, have you tried to look for her death?

I would still email all three cemeteries, it will cut your time down, and it's not wasted time at all. Loads of people ask the same question and often they are wasted questions. You can but ask, and it does not cost.

Shortie
 
Hi Shortie

i have tried just about every search i can think of, on maiden name married name, deaths, marriages just in case, i need a bigamist to complete the set lol she just did not appear on the 1901 then not the 1911, she is not the only one though. my Great Grandfathers family exist right up to the 1901 census then they all dissapear except my grandfather who i can follow to his death in 1951, the rest of the brothers and sisters just disapear, i am now wondering if they emigrated as i do have branches of the family in Canada , Australia, Malta and New Zealand and a lot of them made the trip before and after WW1, all of the other grandfathers and families back 8 generations i have masses of info on just my Great Grandfather whom being nearer to now would have been the easy family you would have thought, anyway its early days, i have not been at this lark for a year yet so i am sure i will crack the case before i pop my clogs, with that thought i had better email all 3 at once, i have seen so many death certificates this last week that i may need to get a move on before someone is adding mine there lol

burgerbern
 
just an update have mailed 3 cemetries so far with negative results, Yardley, Lodge Hill & Brandwood End. really must send out the next but have been engrossed by a WWI death in my wifes tree, i think i found someone who tried to join up twice but got discharged as unfit on medical grounds and then tried a third time got in and was killed on the Somme in 1916, i have the first 2 tries documented, various slight changes but the same mother and same address and same birth year, but the clincher the records for the one who died on the Somme i cannot find, but if i am right and i am 90% sure that i am then he is commemorated on the war memorial and in the commonweath War Graves commission files under the wrong name, i have a baptism for him as middle name sibley , one try as sibley, one as sidney and the death is for sidney. its another thing to plug away at.
 
Just checked and Doris is not in Key Hill Cemetery so you can count that one out as well.
 
Thanks Wendy, i sent to Handsworth this morning and Key Hill was next on the list, so no need to try that one now. excluding those that were not open at the time that just leaves Quinton, Warstone Lane, Witton and Sutton Coildfield. I am sure that Sutton coldfield will not be the answer. this would have been easier if the weblink for searching online was working on the cemetries page, but alas its been down for quite a while now.
 
my father in laws sister in Spain told me today that her aunt (who passed away a couple of months ago) told her that on the day of the funeral in 1942 there was mud everywhere as it was a new cemetery, so the next job will be to revisity the cemeteries page and see if any were new at that time.
 
Success, despite being told when i enquired at Yardley Cemetery back in september that there was no record of her there, and having emailed every cemetery that was open in 1942, my father in law in the end paid the Birmingham Geaneologist service to do a search and they found her, yes you guessed it Yardley cemetery 21B 18561. interred 26 may 1942. thanks for all the suggestions and help.
 
Burgerbern I am sorry to hear about your run around in finding your father in laws Mum it does happen. I think sometimes they give the look up to a junior member of staff who maybe are not so thorough. I am pleased you have found her have they offered to take a photo? Is there a memorial?.
I am having an awful time finding my great grandfather Arthur Yates who's obituary tells me he was buried in Aston Parish Church. That seems unusual for 1895 but I can't find him in the church register.
 
Wendy
my father in law is arranging with his sister in Spain to make a visit to the grave in the near future, so all will be revealed as to memorial etc at thet time, hope you find your grandfather, there are a whole bunch of Yates on my own tree but all from around the Hackney area of London bar one who was born in Landore, Glamorgan, Wales and died in Australia, one, Elizabeth Ann Yates was my great grandmother.
 
How lovely that your father in law and his sister are going to visit the grave.

Here is a map of the cemetery if you need any more help let me know. My mother and father in law are buried in Yardley Cemetery.

Yates is a very common name I have had a lot of problems researching them luckily my grandmother was Clarissa Yates so not too common.

Yardley_Cemetery_Plan_002.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well

this gets even more interesting, father in law rang Yardley this morning to confirm and check the best way of getting there, to be told that the plot and grave number was not his mums grave,it was a family plot, so because a part from the report from the geaneologist there was scribbled on the page Lodge hill so he tried them and after a while they found her in the same grave number apparently the numbering systems are similar, so in the course of a few days she has moved to Lodge Hill from Yardley on paper at least, i thinkl that now means we finally know where his mum is
 
Well at least you now know where she is and my find some more family too.....good luck!
 
begerbern, I have only just seen this thread about the search for your relatives grave. I am hoping to go to Lodge Hill soon to visit the graves of some of my hubbys family - fortunately I have someone that I can take with me who knows where they are - I want to get the locations of the graves photographed/recorded before everyone forgets where they are.
If you want me to look for/photograph your relatives grave/headstone please let me know - I will do my best to help.
 
hi pollypops

many thanks for the offer, my father in law whose mum she is, is arranging to drive up to Birmingham to visit the grave soon, apparently it is very near the back of the crematorium. other wise i would have taken you up on your kind offer.
 
Hi burgerbern,
Sorry I have only just seen your reply. I am so pleased that your father-in-law is able to visit the grave himself :) I am hoping to go in the next two weeks.
 
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