Thank you Karen and JJ for all of this. This is the first time I have joined a Rootschat and I am finding it rather tricky to find my way around it and how it works. I have tried to write to Grub to thank for locking me into the right cage and I hope that my message has found its way appropriately!
JJ, yes I do have the UK birth certificates for all the girls and I had seen that same census entry for a Kate Gay. In that case the birthday given is very close but has no numerical or other comparisons that suggest it definitely is the same Kate Gay. But it is well known that the children's birthdays were often incorrectly carried forward to Canada, so it could equally well be her.
KATE GAY'S date of birth is 11 September 1875
ELIZABETH GAY'S date of birth is 18 July 1873
CHARLOTTE GAY's date of birth is 21 May 1869
I had also found an entry for Charlotte on the census and the birthdate matches exactly, although at the moment we do not know how or when Charlotte was sent to Canada.
Karen, thank you for all those references, that is a lot of information we had not yet found. I have just checked the Commonwealth War Grave Commission records for WW1 casualties and see that there is no Wilfred recorded but two Canadians with the initial W. I can check on that later on, when we have found some more details ; actually a surprising number of Canadians with the surname Waite are there, though. I hope she got her son back from the war - she had lost so much in her life.
I should say that there was also a brother called Robert Gay and I am in touch with his descendents in the USA who are fully aware of his life story. I am in the UK and until just a few months ago I had no idea I needed to learn how to search around Canadian archives. I am quite skilled at UK searching but a novice with Canada and the USA. Until they heard from me the American family did not know that Robert's sisters had probably also become migrants, and because my grandmother and another sister did not leave England I had no idea that some others did.
Currently the family in the USA are waiting for a reply to written enquiries at the Canadian archives so we have not yet been too vigorous in our searches because the information may yet be sent to us. I will share this information with them as well.
JJ, I see you have sent two more messages so will send this right away. It is late evening here, so I will not be able to stay and play for too long now - will have to step back into my family cage before I get found out!!
Again, thank you all,
Connie
