The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Can you help Linda solve 70 year old mystery and find her mum
Great-grandma’s mum was from Peterborough
A great-grandmother is hoping Peterborough residents could hold the key to a decades old mystery and help identify her mother.
Linda Wright was adopted as a child in 1945, and never knew her parents.
She had been left at a home in London by her mother, who said she would return - but she never did.
Her mum told the couple at the home she had come from Peterborough, and was meeting her husband, who was travelling from Edinburgh.
With the help of family tree experts, she has managed to discover the identity of her father - Carl Durnen, from Oklahoma, USA, who was serving in the US Air Force but has never been able to find the identity of her mother.
But now it is thought she might have lived in Peterborough.
Linda (72), from Stanstead, Essex said: “It would mean everything to know who my mother was.
“It has been like living my life with no identity.
“I only found out who my father was before Christmas. When I saw a photo of him, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“I’ve now got three sisters and two brothers in America - I don’t know if I have any siblings on my mother’s side.”
The detective work to find Linda’s family tree is being carried out by Julia Bell from Ancestry DNA.
She said: “I believe Linda’s mother could be a descendant of siblings of Arthur Ernest Crowson born 1872 in Peterborough, died 1943 in March, Cambridgeshire and Alice Dyson born 1874, Newborough, Northamptonshire and/or a descendant of Sarah Ann Wilson born in Peterborough in 1799.
“She married William Waller (from Oundle) Linda may descend through their son William and wife Alice: William was born in Peterborough in 1835.
“His wife, Alice Johnson, was born in Peterborough in 1838.”
Linda’s mum had red hair, was smartly dressed and well spoken.
Anyone with information should email Julia at julia@ pinehousegroup.com