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The Common Room / Re: Frank Lewis from Wolverhampton/The Black Country: Hard to trace
« on: Sunday 04 May 25 15:54 BST (UK) »
I am going to order the certificate, was the £3.00 order mentioned for viewing the birth index record?
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The Common Room / Re: Frank Lewis from Wolverhampton/The Black Country: Hard to trace
« on: Sunday 04 May 25 15:51 BST (UK) »Lily Louisa is showing as a single woman in 1921 - working in service in Teddington, Middlesex
I saw this record recently and how Cyril wasn't mentioned, I wonder where he was in 1921, perhaps living with relatives? It looks even more like Frank Lewis was just invented by him for the marriage certificate
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The Common Room / Re: Frank Lewis from Wolverhampton/The Black Country: Hard to trace
« on: Sunday 04 May 25 15:50 BST (UK) »Dyson could be the fathers name but if so will be difficult to find which Mr Dyson it may have been.
For Lily to say she was a widow wasn’t unheard of either, more respectable than saying you were unmarried if living alone with a child.
Do let us know what the birth says and if we can help further.
I think I'd heard this before, that an unmarried woman with a child said they were a widow because of how it was more respectable
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The Common Room / Re: Frank Lewis from Wolverhampton/The Black Country: Hard to trace
« on: Sunday 04 May 25 15:49 BST (UK) »It's possible Cyril was illegitimate and made up a fathers name when he got married which wasn't unheard of.
There may not be a Frank Lewis but if you obtain the birth certificate for Cyril it will have his parent(s) on it.
In these cases middle names can often be a clue to the father so Dyson in this case.
Also fathers weren't always noted as deceased even if they were as just their names were asked for.
To summarise the first step would be to get the birth for Cyril and see if a father is named
Note no mothers maiden name is listed for his birth on the General Register Office birth index.
I didn't see about how no mother's maiden name is listed before, I was sure when I saw his entry his mother's maiden name was shown as Lewis, which made me wonder if he was illegitimate
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The Common Room / Re: Frank Lewis from Wolverhampton/The Black Country: Hard to trace
« on: Saturday 03 May 25 16:13 BST (UK) »
It's very interesting to think Cyril made up his father's name for the marriage if he was illegitimate, I've never heard of this before. I often wonder where the name Dyson came from, I can get his birth certificate to find out.
I also never knew fathers always weren't shown as deceased as other marriage certificates I've got show fathers as deceased and I just remembered Doris's father (my great grandad's brother in law) was shown as deceased on their certificate.
Lily was the Lily Louisa Lewis you mentioned, she would have been single at the time she died, but if she had been married then her husband (if he existed) would have died before 1939
I also never knew fathers always weren't shown as deceased as other marriage certificates I've got show fathers as deceased and I just remembered Doris's father (my great grandad's brother in law) was shown as deceased on their certificate.
Lily was the Lily Louisa Lewis you mentioned, she would have been single at the time she died, but if she had been married then her husband (if he existed) would have died before 1939
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The Common Room / Frank Lewis from Wolverhampton/The Black Country: Hard to trace
« on: Saturday 03 May 25 15:47 BST (UK) »
I have been looking on and off for a Frank Lewis whose son Cyril Dyson Lewis married my grandad's cousin Doris Wyres. Their marriage certificate from 1945 shows Cyril's father as Frank Lewis, occupation drapery salesman and it doesn't show Frank as deceased. However, the 1939 census shows Cyril and his mother Lily living in Wolverhampton and Lily's marital status is shown as widowed. When I looked for Cyril's birth entry from 1916 it gave his mother's maiden name as Lewis. Assuming her last name before marriage could have been the same as her husband's, I've looked for a Lily Lewis who married a Frank Lewis in the Black Country region and I've found nothing. Cyril's birth was registered in Dudley (it seems possible he was born in Sedgley or Coseley as they came under Dudley registration district and Doris came from this area). By a coincidence his second wife also came from Coseley (Doris died at a fairly young age)
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The Common Room / Re: Ann Stephens (Actress)
« on: Tuesday 04 March 25 21:56 GMT (UK) »Having looked a bit more, I really don't think this is the correct Ann G Stephens. It seems to me that the one who married Leslie Frederick Harding was born in 1938 and died in 2015.
This is really interesting. It seems Ann Stephens the actress settled in the United States and possibly married there. It seems we might never know what happened to her, but as her mother's will doesn't mention her, it appears she could have died by 1982
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The Common Room / Re: Ann Stephens (Actress)
« on: Friday 21 February 25 21:37 GMT (UK) »There's two marriages for Ann G Stephens..One in Essex 1950 to Royce McGrath and one in Kent to Lesie F Harding.1960.
Perhaps the Ann G. Stephens who married Leslie F. Harding could be Ann and she emigrated to the US?
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The Common Room / Re: Ann Stephens (Actress)
« on: Friday 21 February 25 21:36 GMT (UK) »I checked the Wikipedia article on Ann Stephens to see when her death date was added and whether the person who added it gave a source for their information.
It happened very early on - the article was created on the 16th December, 2006, and the date of death was added three revisions later on the 14th June, 2007, by a user, since banned, called Ruantengyi:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ann_Stephens&diff=138101446&oldid=99011566
No reason for this date was given. Various people have attempted to remove the unsourced date of death since then, but someone else has always added it back again. The current article uses IMDB as a reliable source and I can't help but think that IMDB probably got their information from the Wikipedia article!
This is very interesting and it's a bit shocking to think that one Wikipedia member's edit that's not even based on any facts has become misinformation. I wonder if Ann's sister was aware of the alleged date of death being all over the Internet?