Why can’t I find my great grandfather’s correct death?
QI have been searching for my great grandfather Frederick Bell’s death. In 1932 he and my step-great grandmother were in Queens Drive, Nottingham. On the 1939 Register his wife was down as a widow, so I have a window to search within, but to no avail.
Frederick was born on 29 August 1873 in Blackburn, son of Edward Bell and Ann Gregory. An apprentice stonemason, he joined the Army at 19. He then joined the Navy in Gosport, where he married my great grandmother Edith Florence Titheridge. She died in 1915, and three months later he married their housekeeper, Blanche. In the 1930s, Frederick was a journeyman stonemason in Nottingham.
However, the 1939 Register records a Frederick and Jessie Bell in Southampton. Frederick has the same birthdate, and his occupation is “Retired (Royal Navy)”.
Su Bramley
AI think we have two different men, both called Frederick Bell, and both born on 29 August. Frederick, the son of Edward and Ann Bell, was born – according to his baptism record at St Oswald’s, Knuzden (near Blackburn) – on 29 August 1876. He joined the Army
in 1894, adding a year to his age, and left in 1906. The 1911 census has him in Alverstoke, working as a messenger at the army discharge depot in Gosport, when he seems to have added five years to his age.
But there is also Frederick Edward Bell, who, according to his Hammersmith baptism, was born on 29 August 1873. He joined the Navy in 1895 and served through the First World War. I think he is the man you have found in 1939. He and wife Jessie even give the address of Queens Drive, Portsmouth, on a 1926 passenger list, a coincidence when ‘your’ Frederick lived in Queens Drive, Nottingham.
Given the electoral roll information and Blanche being widowed by 1939, you have a defined period for his death. Check in registration districts around Nottingham, and be flexible about the age shown. Frederick was inconsistent in recording his age, so what did he give when he married Blanche? Knowing the age she believed him to be would help narrow down the possible death registrations.
Antony Marr