Bertha Cowdray - Harbottle?

[venusian]

 I believe my grandmothers sister Bertha married a Albert Harbottle, Portsmouth, 1919. One of 11 children, Bertha May Cowdray was born Singleton, Sussex, 1889. I believe she had several children. Any help welcome with my brick wall.

                                 Venusian

 This is a photo of My Gran Annie Cowdray - Pilcher with husband Frank behind,Bertha and Ada Cowdray, with my father cuddling a cousin. I have found the family of three other Cowdrays and been able to share photos.

[PaulineJ]

You should have been able to glean quite a lot of info from using the complete GRO indexes.

(a) Identify names and births of candidiate kids  (from using surname and MMN)
(b) use the marraige indexes to obtain possible marraiges for her kids.
(c) use the death indexes to 'kill off' the above names.

How far did you get with that approach?
(Give a list of results, and we may be able to advise how to narrow it down further.)

Pauline

[venusian]

Hi Pauline,
                  one child Reginald Harbottle, mother Cowdray born 1923 when Bertha would have been 34. Through contact from Canada with the grandaughter of the youngest child (Hettie Nellie), I have a picture of the children below. However Hettie born 1891 was taken when her mother Henrietta ran off with a young man (Stephen Pannell Norrell) from nearby East Dean and was renamed Norrell. This was my skeleton in the closet, my grandmother said she had three younger siblings so I did not know about this until eighteen months ago when I started researching. Infact Henrietta had five more children by the name of Norrell, only two survived, she never divorced and became known as Norrell in Burnham, Bucks where they settled. Penny told me Hettie had a lot of problems when she got married as she had no proof of birth and she never knew that her real name was Cowdray or that she had ten other siblings. I find it all very sad and it has made it very difficult to share all I know with the whole Cowdray clan. I also have contact with one of the grandchildren of one of the two surviving Norrell children.
 Bertha's sister Ada Blanch Cowdray and brother Arthur Henry also reportedly married Hampshire.
 Penny was not forthcoming in helping with Bertha which is sad but there you are,

                                Diane

[Dealb19]

Hi Venusian,
Bertha was my great grand mother.I have a couple of photos of her and Albert still. They had a hard life having to live through two World Wars. Albert served through WW1 with Royal Garrison Artillery. I have his medals framed with his son's,Reginald's WW2 medal along with my own fathers medal. Betha and Albert only had one son. Lived in Portsmouth and in their later years in Woolwich,London. My dad told me Bertha was a housekeeper for a well to do family, can't remember the family's name but can find out if you want it. Do you know when the group photo of the Cowdrey family was taken ? If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch.
Dealb19

[chempat]

Welcome to rootschat, Dealb19.

Venusian has not used the boards since 2012, so fingers crossed that she is still receiving updates about messages posted to the boards.

You could try contacting her directly, but you will need to post on the boards again before you can send emails directly.

[venusian]

Hi, I met Reginald several times in my lifetime. The last was when Hazel bought him to see me. Bertha kept in contact with my paternal Grandmother Annie Pilcher nee Cowdray, here in her birthplace where I still live. It was Annie that bought up Flora Kate, Arthur, Bertha, Ada and Leonard after their Mother left to set up home with Stephen Pannell Norrell. Together Henrietta Cowrdray taking Hettie Nellie their youngest, had five more children of which only two survived a boy and a girl. Annie also kept in contact with Flora Kate (Florence) up until Flora's death and also with Jessie. Very good to hear from you. I was born a Pilcher my Father also a only child, and Reginald visited when I was a child also. Very good to hear from you, Diane x