Ethel Quin

[IgorStrav]

The DOB (19/1/28) for Ethel Wills

I don't see any reply that actually confirms that Ethel Wills birthdate was 19.1.1928.  No birthdate on the baptismal record     

The SA emigration story turned out to be a wild goose chase so you really need to be absolutely sure of your facts this time

EDIT

Referring to Carol's reply below - here's the link

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/

I cannot emphasise more, along with the other posters here, that the Ethel Wills = Ethel Quin theory is just that, a completely hypothetical suggestion. Until we get a birth certificate for Ethel Wills which confirms the birthdate of 19/1/28 shown on the Land Army document.

If, in my extensive construction of a family tree for the Wills/Quin family I had found any indication that Ethel Wills could be definitely connected to Ethel Quin, I would have said.

But Ethel Wills is not so far as I can see in the 1939 (as a possible dob confirmation), and so far all we have is a potential matching birth quarter, month of baptism (not dob), and mother's maiden name, together with the Salford connection from the Land Army record.

I have myself previously attached great weight to theories which in the end have turned out to be completely wrong. 

I appreciate that Ethel Quin's daughter is in hospital, but it is possible to use the GRO site to obtain both birth and marriage certificates - they are definitely operating, as has been said - very simply.

Please do come back when these are received so that we can again see what we can DEFINITELY prove rather than hypothesise.

[IgorStrav]

Reply to JonW65, I checked this website and some of the Wills family are shown on there however the 3rd daughter Agnes is recorded as Mills and not Wills. Same parents but error on website. I am trying to check for other typos / spelling errors hopefully I can sort this mystery out as she doesnt seem to have her birth been registered anywhere ?

Agnes Wills
Reg Date
10/1929
Reg Qtr  Oct-Nov-Dec
Reg district Salford
Greater Manchester
Mother's Maiden Name  Quin
Vol No 8d
Page number 374

Agnes' birth registered here


However, so far as I can see, Agnes does not appear on records anywhere else.

[CaroleW]

A Wills tree on Ancestry refers to Iris Wills as a child of George & Winifred Wills (nee Quin) - wonder if this is Agnes.  No birthdate - just birth location as Salford.  No mention of Ethel on the tree

[IgorStrav]

A Wills tree on Ancestry refers to Iris Wills as a child of George & Winifred Wills (nee Quin) - wonder if this is Agnes.  No birthdate - just birth location as Salford.  No mention of Ethel on the tree

Yes, Carole - I also saw, and wondered whether a) Agnes liked to be called Iris or b) whether the information came from the person's mother (who'd died when he was relatively young) and was a mishearing of what had been said: Agnes-Iris

However, I've not been able to find an Iris Wills either!!!

[CaroleW]

I had messaged the Baird tree owner who was unaware of the 1952 marriage so I have given him the link to this post with the page and reply number so he can view the actual cert.

[Jamie79]

Hi,

My maternal grandmother was Nora Margaret Baird, born 1930, younger sister of James Leslie and Geoffrey Graham Baird. She passed away in 2017. James and Geoffrey both settled and died in Kent, having grown up in the East End of London/Bexleyheath area of Kent. The family were bombed seven times during WWII, there is an article from c1942 in the Sunday Pictorial newspaper detailing the story of their harrowing experience as one of Britain's most bombed families.

Their father James Brodie Baird hailed from Glasgow and served in WWI with his twin, George, who died 28 Septemnber 1918, a day after being shot in the head in the field of battle with the Machine Gun Corps. James returned home to Glasgow and was told by his family that he should have died, not his brother, as he had goaded him into joining him in signing up underage for military service. James turned his back on Scotland and went on the road as a music hall entertainer. He met Audrey Phillis Katherine Soper at a Manchester boarding house where she was lodging while serving a millinery apprenticeship. She was granddaughter of Samuel Henry Soper, Mayor of Brighton in 1890/91. Samuel had died suddenly, leaving a fortune and the family business to his son, Samuel, Snr., Audrey's father, who gambled everything away and died bankrupt in 1909. Audrey's mother was German, of Polish descent, her family having moved to England in the 1870s.

My grandmother was not close to her brothers in adulthood, I never met them. She married my grandfather in London after WWII. He was from Liverpool, where they moved in 1954, my parents met and married and I was born in 1979. I have contact with James Leslie Baird's children in Kent and their extended families. Geoffrey and second wife Molley Gaylor adopted a daughter around 1960, I have emailed her and will get back to you with anything I find out.

I have never heard anything of a marriage to an Ethel Quin, my grandmother might have known about it, but had little desire to ever talk about her brothers' lives. I have never even seen a photograph of either of them. I will happily ask James' family if they ever knew anything of Geoffrey's earlier life and report back, but the South African stories sound unlikely to me.

Hope this helps, best regards.

Jamie Yates
Liverpool, England

[Jamie79]

* typos updated in previous post.

[Jamie79]

I've just had confirmation from a son of James Leslie Baird that Geoffrey and Ethel were divorced around 1956/57. James' wife is still alive and well and I should be hearing from her shortly with a few more details, she was at Geoff and Ethel's wedding in 1952 where James was best man.

[CaroleW]

Hi Jamie

Thanks for responding.  I presume you have now seen the 1952 marriage cert I mentioned in my message?

If any of Geoffrey's family can throw any light on Ethel it would be great.

To save you wading through the many pages on this post we are currently waiting for 2 certificates.

One is a 1928 birth cert for an Ethel Wills.  There is a possibility that Ethel Quin was actually born as Ethel Wills but took her mothers maiden name of Quin in later life.  Ethel gave a birthdate when she enlisted in the Land Army so the Ethel Wills birth cert is needed for comparison

Secondly - there is an Ethel Quin marriage to a Charlie Richardsdon in the same year and qtr that Geoffrey married Molley - March qtr 1959 so that marriage cert is awaited.  There may be no connection but Charlie was also born 1928