Hit a dead end doing family tree- any help appreciated!

[looey82]

Hi, I've been recently doing my family tree on my father's side and now got stuck!

I knew only my Grandfather's name as he died before I was born. I've found out that my grandad, George Low Chalmers was one of 6 boys born in Marykirk, Kincardineshire. I have managed to find that one boy died as a baby, 3 sons were killed in world war 2 and that leaves Richard Chalmers born [after 1909], also in Marykirk but later the family moved to Laurencekirk.
I can't find a death certificate in Scotland, England or Wales. Nor a marriage certificate. As 3 of his brothers were in the war, I would hazard a guess that he was too but obviously didn't die as he's be on the war memorial/roll of honour with his brothers. The only thing I can thing is that he moved abroad. How do I go about tracing this?

Also one of the brothers who died in the war, James Chalmers had a wife, Elizabeth Jane Bruce and they married in Aboyne. There was 9 years between them marrying and his death so I'm trying to find out if there were any children. Again I'm stuck. Elizabeth doesn't seem to have remarried and died in Laurencekirk [after 1959]. I guess I could request her death certificate and see who registered her death- is that the best way to do it. However at 90, she may have outlived any children- any other ideas??

Thanks very much for bothering to read this and any help would be great, Looey

[Dates edited by SarahND]

[SarahND]

Hello Looey and a warm
The dates of the people you are interested in are past the cut-off date for posting on the forum (see Essential Reading: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6601 ) I can tell you, however, that there is a public member tree on Ancestry.co.uk with a George Low Chalmers who died in Greater London. This George had two brothers who died in 1942 and one in 1945, so it looks as though it is the same family. The parents were Alexander Chalmers and Elizabeth Low. If that is not your tree, it might belong to one of your relatives!

All the best,
Sarah

[JustJean]

Also one of the brothers who died in the war, James Chalmers had a wife, Elizabeth Jane Bruce and they married in Aboyne. There was 9 years between them marrying and his death so I'm trying to find out if there were any children. Again I'm stuck. Elizabeth doesn't seem to have remarried and died in Laurencekirk [after 1959]. I guess I could request her death certificate and see who registered her death- is that the best way to do it. However at 90, she may have outlived any children- any other ideas??

Thanks very much for bothering to read this and any help would be great, Looey

[Dates edited by SarahND]

Hi Looey

Since you know that Elizabeth Jane Bruce died in Laurencekirk but you go on to further state she didn't seem to have remarried I'm suspecting that either you haven't viewed the index entry of her death or you don't know how to interpret the details that it provides. Let me give you a quick lesson.....if you search on www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk for her death it's easily found just as you state in Laurencekirk. If you view all the information provided pertaining to her various names you'll note that the entry is indexed by Surname first and then Forename and then there is the option of Mother's Maiden Name and then additional Surnames. So in her case we know that her maiden name was BRUCE and her married name was CHALMERS and her forename is ELIZABETH with middle name of JANE. What we don't know is if she had been married perhaps before marrying Mr Chalmers or married additional times after him. We also do not know her mother's maiden name. The neat things about the indexing though is that all of her surnames are given....ie all of her married names as well as her maiden name (provided that the informant on her death knew her full details). The entry will appear in the order you enter the search details...ie it doesn't identify which of the surnames is her maiden name and which are married names. If you view her entry it's quite obvious there is one more name you have not mentioned that is listed as a surname for her. That immediately says to me that she was married again. This can be confirmed by searching the marriages on SP using this new surname and her known maiden name of BRUCE and of course her known forename. There is one marriage to be found in Aboyne that fits all the above criteria. From this index entry you'll learn the grooms name. Since the date of this marriage is after the cut off dates I won't list it here.

Now for just how helpful this additional information will be for you. Sometimes it's possible to further search the modern indexes for deaths using mother's maiden name and surname and location and stumble upon children. Of course this only works if the children are dead...so if you're trying to get forward to living relatives it's not a guaranteed direct route. As you stated you could always order her death certificate to see who her informant was. It well could be a living relative with an address that could rather quickly provide you with a way forward to try and obtain further family details.

Hope this is somewhat helpful!

Best wishes
Jean