What happened to Margaret Emily Owen?
QOn the 1939 Register, living with my grandmother Mary Owen (née Fowles) at 121 Westway, Hammersmith, London, was Margaret Emily Owen with a birthdate of 3 August 1923, but I can’t find a record of this.
On her marriage to Robert Lark in 1946, she gives Joseph Owen as her father.
Mary Owen would have been 50 in 1923 – not an impossible age for a birth, but very unlikely. In that year, the Fowles–Owen family was living at no. 39 North Street, Marylebone, London. At no. 23 was another Owen family with a daughter Margaret Alice Owen also born in 1923.
Could Margaret Emily have been unofficially adopted?
Peter Shead
AThe 1939 Register entry shows a Margaret E Owen, born 31 August 1923. There are two Margaret E Owens whose births were registered in the September quarter of 1923: one in Holyhead to a mother with the maiden name Lewis (11b, 789), and one in Cardigan to a mother with the maiden name Evans (11b, 1). These certificates could be ordered to check whether either of them are for a Margaret Emily of the correct birthdate and with a father named Joseph.
Mary’s husband was named Joseph Owen, which could suggest he was Margaret’s (possibly adoptive) father. However, there may be other Joseph Owens in the family. Since Margaret was 16 at the time the 1939 Register was taken, she did not have to be adopted to be living with your grandmother.
The Margaret Alice Owen you have identified appears to have been born in Marylebone: the birth of a Margaret A Owen (mother’s maiden name Yorston) was registered in the district in the September quarter of 1923 (1a, 740). You could look into whether this family was connected to yours, but the name may simply be a coincidence.
To be certain as to the relationship between the two women, I recommend tracing any living descendants of Margaret Emily to see if they know more about her early life. You could start by ordering her death certificate and checking the name and address of the informant (March quarter 1975; Lark, Margaret Emily; 31Aug1923; Wandsworth; 15; 1210).
Emma Jolly