EUREKA MOMENT
The WDYTYA? Forum to the rescue again
How long have you been researching family history?
I started researching my wife’s family tree in 2013 when we found out that her father, known to all as Peter John Cooper, had actually been born Thomas Peter John Lovegrove.
What did you uncover before your brick wall?
Pretty much everything else, actually! On my wife’s maternal side, which came from Sweden, I’d been able to get as far back as the early 1400s due to the amazingly detailed records they have over there. I’d also managed to trace her paternal grandmother’s family back to the early 1600s.
Despite these discoveries, her paternal grandfather – John Lovegrove – remained just a name on a couple of certificates, and I was keen to find out more about him.
How had you tried to solve the mystery previously?
I could find very little information about John other than a few possible addresses in the Reading area.
There was a family rumour that he had actually been Francis George Lovegrove – the maternal uncle of my wife’s grandmother, Mildred. But despite there being Lovegroves on both sides of the family, I couldn’t find any concrete evidence to confirm this.
I searched countless websites, spent days in the record office and wrote to several newspapers, but all to no avail.
What was the ‘eureka’ moment?
Having spotted that the December 2017 issue of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine was offering free access to Berkshire records, I decided to purchase a copy and noticed that the magazine had a forum. Intrigued, I signed up and posted details of my brick wall to see whether anyone could help. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much; I’d already posted the request on other forums, and had grown used to people offering me information that I already had, despite their good intentions.
What I wasn’t expecting, however, was a reply from another user saying that they had found an entry for John Lovegrove in the London electoral registers, along with details of a possible second marriage and daughter. As the discussion developed, it became clear that John really was Francis George Lovegrove, and that he was not only Mildred’s uncle, but also her former husband.
What happened next?
I already had a lot of information about Francis George Lovegrove because he was, of course, Mildred’s uncle. But I had previously discounted him because I’d assumed that he was too old to be the person on the certificates that I had for my father-in-law’s birth and the marriage of his parents.
However, once I started looking at Francis more closely, I started to realise that the pieces fit together. On John and Mildred’s 1920 marriage certificate, it stated that the groom’s father was a deceased painter and decorator named Thomas. Francis George Lovegrove’s father had also been named Thomas, worked as a painter and decorator, and had died in 1918.
Furthermore forum users found that the London John Lovegrove had married a woman named Dorothy Brentall in 1925 (‘mine’ had disappeared in 1923), and had a daughter called Rita Lovegrove. Rita had gone on to marry a Jamaican immigrant called Clyde Blake, with John Lovegrove
listed as her father on the marriage certificate.
Later entries in the electoral register showed John Lovegrove living with Rita and Clyde Blake, but then, sometime during the 1950s, the register entries showed a Francis George Lovegrove living with Rita and Clyde instead.
However, perhaps the biggest breakthrough came when I found an old cutting from the Reading Mercury containing details of a magistrates appearance by a boy named John Lovegrove, who had apparently damaged a hayrick with a group of lads.
Crucially, the report revealed that he lived at 38 Grange Avenue, Reading – the same address as Francis George Lovegrove, whose father had been called Thomas Lovegrove and who definitely didn’t have a brother called John.
Final proof that Frances and John were the same person came when another forum user showed that John Lovegrove had listed his next of kin as Thomas Lovegrove of 38 Grange Avenue when he enlisted for service during the First World War.
How did it feel when you confirmed John Lovegrove’s true identity?
At first, there was some disbelief. I’d spent over three years looking for this person, and he’d been right under my nose all this time! But then I started going back through my earlier notes on Francis George Lovegrove, and I realised that the answers had been there all along.
One of the biggest mistakes I’d made during my previous research was not realising that Frances George Lovegrove had a cousin called ‘Frank’ George Lovegrove, who not only lived in the same area but also went to the same school.
Frank served in the Royal Berkshire Regiment and had been killed in the First World War, and I’d wrongly attributed this to Francis George (who had been in the Hampshire Regiment, but survived). I felt foolish, but at the same time elated because I knew that I’d finally managed to fit the pieces into place and solve the puzzle of John Lovegrove’s true identity.
Strangely, the fact that he was indeed the uncle of my wife’s grandmother didn’t seem to matter that much at all. It was nice to be able to confirm the rumours but the past, as they say, is another country.
I’ve yet to find out if the marriage was formally annulled (it would have been illegal in the first place). However, I know that Mildred married Tim Cooper in 1924 and my father-in-law was subsequently raised as Peter John Cooper.
Did you learn anything else?
I learned that even official records can be wrong sometimes, and not just due to inaccurate transcriptions. John Lovegrove gave a different date of birth on several occasions, and even his name was changed by common usage.
Mostly though I learned that, while genealogy can be both fascinating and frustrating, it’s also highly addictive.
What would your advice be to other researchers who hit an obstacle?
Never give up! By all means step away from your research, or pursue other branches of your tree for a while, but never stop trying.
You also need to use every available resource that you can think of.
Francis was clearly not only Mildred’s uncle, but also her former husband