As always I am amazed by the amount of information unearthed in a short time, and as usual I turn up on the graveyard shift at RootsChat so I am doing a frantic catch up with it all.
The army papers are interesting, and slightly odd. When I downloaded them from TNA the last two pages weren't there so I never got the Military History sheet with his overseas service, next of kin, marriage & birth of son.
There seem to be three lines opening up at the moment.
1 Philadelphia Gains, born in Brede who had an illegitimate daughter Elsie in 1897. It may be relevant that Kate was very attached to her eldest grandaughter and on several occasions tried to have her live with her rather than her parents. She also let slip late in her life that she had had a daughter who had died. It was always assumed that this had been within her marriage, but could this have been little Elsie who died age 2? With regards to Maurice Biddle, he was a Sergeant in the 3rd Scots Guards in 1901 in Westminster (RG13-96-5-1) and I had assumed that the connection was military, but when would they have met given the very different service, Guards & Royal Engineers. Brother in law seems quite a possibility.
2. Kate Gerrard from Halifax, if only her arrival had been after Frederick's service there. Kate did have some sort of obsession with Americans, befriended a number of American families in this country and is rumoured to have given them family heirlooms, her grandaughters toys... Or was Kate Gerrard from Halifax Philadelphia Gain under another name?
3. Kate Gerrard the actress. Needs investigating. I did have a subscription to the Stage but it seems to have lapsed. I will have to renew it.
Photos and information are a problem. Kate's two grandaughters are in their 70s and neither is in good health. Both can be tetchy if pressed for information about their family and you have to wait for information to dribble out. There are supposed to be photographs somewhere but they either can't be found or are somewhere which happens to be inaccessible at the moment. The only photo we have at the moment was taken in 1931, so isn't very useful for comparison with the picture of the actress.
Robert
