RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Dorset => Topic started by: tesscawley on Thursday 21 July 11 18:05 BST (UK)
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I am researching the Christodoulou family that lived at 28 Heaton Road, Winton circa 1940 (the ones I know about are all dead now). However I wondered if anyone had access to any information as to when they left the area and where they went from there.
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If they left Winton after 1945 then the electoral registers held by Bournemouth council should show the change.
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Unfortunately I don't have access as I am in Cape Town. It has dawned on me that knowing exactly who was there and when they left might have a strong bearing on some of my other research. I just know that it was a "family" home and not even sure which members of the Christodoulou family were in fact there. It is the address my birth mother put on my sisters birth certificate in 1940. As I mentioned they are all deceased now,
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The Electoral Registers are held in the Heritage Zone of Bournemouth Library.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0edc/
Jebber
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Thank you, I wrote to them yesterday and they have replied.
Again many thanks
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If you think the charges are too steep then pm me with details and i'll have a look next time I go.
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Thank you for your reply. The Library heritage Zone replied that there was a Harold and Ivy Collins there in 1940 and that they could not find any Christodoulou names in the area at all which seemed strange.
Helen was definitely born there, its on the birth certificate.
Helen's parents George and Phyllis Christodoulou nee Cherrett were working at 30 Bath Road at the time which was a hotel that was bombed out in WW1. I do know that there were quite a few Greek-Cypriot family's around Bournemouth at the time and now wondering if someone has got this address confused with another.
I would be VERY grateful if you do turn up anything when you are next there if you could let me know.
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Perhaps not so strange, could be similar circumstances to my own birthplace. I was born in 1940 at my aunt's home in Cambridge. My father, mother and grandmother lived in Boston Lincs, mum and grandma having moved there on the marriage in 1939. Grandmother too enfeebled to help at birth etc. Dad unavailable due to war conditions on the railway, so Mum had me at her sister's house. This will have left no trace anywhere other than on my birth certificate.
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Hi, yes, I can understand your situation. However Phyllis had her mother Ellen Toms nee Cherrett and a whole host of relatives not far away all around Poole and Bournemouth.
I have two huge trees on Ancestry, one of my adopted family and one of my birth family and these Collins people don't show on either.
As Phyllis and George both worked and lived at the Hotel I am now wondering if Ivy Collins was perhaps a mid-wife who took in "home delivery's". I have never heard of such a thing but anything is possible.
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Tess,Reply No.6 above has confused me. Do you mean that 30 Bath Road was bombed in WW1 (1914-1918) or WW2 (1939-1945)/
If WW2 then when was it bombed? No doubt we can find out. That might be the reason they were at 28 Heaton Road in 1940.
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Woops, sorry I meant WW2. My elderly uncle in Bournemouth is the one that told me it was bombed in the war. he is a step brother to my and Helen's birth mother, Phyllis Christodoulou but unfortunately was born in 1935 so has very few childhood memories of that time.
I have tried to attach Helen's birth certificate and parents marriage certificate. (All deceased now) On their marriage they were both living and working at 30 Bath Road. if Phyllis needed somewhere to have baby Helen one would have thought she would have stayed with a relative, as in your case, there were certainly plenty around.
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Hi, someone has just suggested that maybe the Collins and Williams were tenants of the Christodoulou family. Just a thought that I felt we should not overlook.
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That is quite possible, but remember there was a war on, a shortage of accomodation not helped by air raids etc. People lived where they could in many instances.
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Hi Tess,
This may be a stupid question, but I notice that the mother gives an address in London on Helen's birth certificate. Is this significant?
By the way, having grown up in Winton, I can confirm that Cherrett is a fairly common name in the area.
Linda
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From what I can gather the hotel where the mother and father worked in Bournemouth was bombed out close to the beginning of the war and from all accounts the whole area went. After that London address I have several more addresses in London from George's army pay book. The LMA also turned up Helen in care in 1942 in London after both she and mother Phyllis were in hospital for a protracted stay. I guess more bombs. It is after that that Helen was sent to her grandmother in Dorset but they were already a full house and so she went to foster parents in Parkstone, Dorset, where she remained until she married and subsequently died in 1971.
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Yes, there were a lot more bombs dropped on Bournemouth than a lot of people realise. My mother was evacuated to Bournemouth from Southampton (she was 10 at the beginning of the war) because it was thought that Bournemouth would be safer. It was - but not completely safe! I used to work in Beales department store, which was bombed along with other town centre buildings, and when I was there there was still a huge crack in one of the outside walls.
Linda
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In WW2 nowhere was safe from raids either air raids or naval action on the coasts. There is another factor which might have made that area of the town a target, and Beales and Bath Road are not far apart given the quality of WW" bomb aiming. I saw a channel 4 program about espionage in WW2 and there was an intelligence unit stationed in the block that adjoins Beales I believe.
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There was also, I've been told, an anti-aircraft gun on the roof of Beales, which I guess would make it a target. But I can't guarantee that as fact.
Linda