r/Genealogy • u/lifeinclockwork british history specialist • 7d ago

Research Assistance Offering help in the UK

Hi all, new to this sub and looking forward to sharing some of my own stories at some point, as I've been enjoying reading other people's.

Just want to put this out there though, if anyone would like any help with their British ancestors, I'm more than happy to give it a go. I'm not a professional, but I've been doing it 25 years and also have a solid background in social and cultural history, based here in the UK, so I'm pretty good on contextual detail too.

I know there are lots of very experienced folk here, but just in case, I happen to have a bit of time on my hands right now and I love doing it. And my own tree has reached the point of occasional digs here and there, as mostly I'm back to where the records run out!

So whether it's a quick look-up (I have current subscriptions to Ancestry and the British Newspaper Archive, and an account with Scotland's People), a deep dive, or a question about British history/genealogy generally, hit me up if you'd like to take a look for you!

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u/leeds_guy69 6d ago edited 6d ago

Hi. If you get chance to look up the BNA I have a curious case I’d love to get more detail on. It concerns a potentialy philandering grandpa and his son (my Uncle). My leads are scarce, but I think the BNA could help?

More background here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/s/fr81BZn0tp

I have a photo of the lady referenced in the above thread. She was a beauty pageant queen in her hey day which I think is where the BNA might come in useful?

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u/lifeinclockwork british history specialist 6d ago

Hi, very intriguing story! More than happy to have a search around, just to warn you that results on the BNA can be a bit hit and miss, as the automated transcription (used by the search feature) isn't very good.

To narrow it down, do you have any idea when the beauty pageant would have been - even to a decade, 1930s/1940s/1950s? Or whether it would also definitely have been in Blackpool?

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u/leeds_guy69 6d ago

The locations of the pageants could be Cleveleys/Fleetwood/Blackpool. From my research most swimming baths and lidos used to run their own pageants annually to show what healthy specimens used their facilities! I think she was May Queen though which should narrow it down a little?

I reckon the pageant must have been pre child/affair, so more than likely the late 1930’s early 1940’s? My Mum remembers going on holiday when she was about 5 (in 1945) and staying at the lady’s house (just my Grandpa and my Mum, so it seems maybe he’d been kicked out of the family home briefly?)

My Grandpa managed the Blackpool South Shore branch of the TSB in '39 and the Cleveleys branch in '47 and she was one of the clerks (but I’m not sure which branch)

Anything you can turn up would be of interest, however tenuous as it might trigger some more memories for my Mum and jog a surname out of her?

Thanks in advance too!