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« on: Friday 16 February 24 07:54 GMT (UK) »
Hello after a long absence
I need to change the topic to Frederick Warren Batchelder South Africa.
In short, my father’s birth certificate entry #259 is incorrect as it refers to the Bachelor family that returned to the UK with their 2 sons, neither of whom was my father.
The correct entry found in the Western Cape Archives and Records Service HAWC 1/3/55/3/1 for his birth is #446. Date place of birth: 10 February 1906, 4 Lay Street, Woodstock; no name just gender Male; Father: blank space; Mother: Sophia Fletcher born Nordström; race Mixed, place: Cape Colony; when registered: 13 March 1906 Woodstock.
Other records show that my grandfather Arthur Asher Batchelder, born in 1853 in the UK, came to the Cape Colony and having married and divorced Catherine van Blommestein after having 4 children, had 3 children with Sophia Margaret [Fletcher, hence widow] neé Nordström. Her father, Johann Alfred Nordström was born in Sweden 1827 & married Margaretha Magdalina Teubes in the Cape. The latter might have been ‘mixed’. Sophia had 2 brothers mentioned in her father’s will.
So a tragic records error that was never questioned. WW11 and being a POW in Italy and Stalag 8 did not help. The International Red Cross have given me a summary of Dad’s POW record but not where the SA POW’s were sent to in the UK. I wonder why he remained in the UK for a year or more. Shell shock was real but untreated then.
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