A big puzzle

[Yuitsu]

Me and my aunt are very interested in finding out more about my great-grandmother (or Little Grandma, as she was known.)

Her listed name was Irene Townsend (no middle name). Her estimated year of birth is 1909. We're not sure where she was born, maybe Tonbridge.

She always thought she was the result of an upstairs/downstairs relationship, she remembered a well off woman arriving in a horse and carriage at her 'foster' home and giving money to her foster parents, until one day the woman told her that she would no longer be coming to see her as she was growing attached.
We know that Townsend was the name of her foster parents (father John Townsend, listed on her marriage certificate), who had no children of their own and were elderly when they took her in. We're hoping that her birth name was Irene.

Would her birth have been registered anywhere by her birth mother, was there a legal requirement?

[PaulineJ]

It should have been registered, but how you would pick it out from all the others?

Pauline

[junev]

Hi,

what was John's occupation on the marriage cert? (carpenter??)

Junev

[Yuitsu]

I have just, through a quick call to my aunt to check the names/lack of, found her, with her original surname on the 1911 census. This is exciting! We'd always been looking for her with the name we knew her as, and earlier thought about approaching it from another angle, i.e the foster family.

As for picking her out, BMD doesn't show many children without middle names, seems we quite like them. I was going to go with that and the guess at her birth year.

[Joburg]

Hi,
   Irenes surname on the 1911 census is Goodman she's 18 months old.

Regards

Joburg

[Yuitsu]

I'm now seeing if I can find anything about her birth parents! There's only one Goodman family in Northfleet that I can see, which is interesting.

Edit: Looking at a map, and the birth register, there's an Irene, born 1909, registered in Bromley which is just up the road. Now to try and find the details we need!

[Liz_in_Sussex]

Hi,

Medway Cityark has all the baptism registers online which you could look through - she may have been baptised.  You could also lock this thread and post for help on the Kent board as they may have more resources/ideas than those of us who frequent the Sussex board.  ( speaking only for myself of course as the Sussex RC's are fantastic!)

Liz