Tracking Down a Mother

Mr H asked us to try to track down his real mother, following his adoption as a 6-month-old baby, 50 years ago.

All he had was the name of his mother (then 16 at the time), and the area in which he was born. 

Following extensive research through various civil registration records, we were able to piece together a family tree for his mother. We found that she had married twice, and had gone on to have a further three children. 

Unfortunately, her second marriage was to a man with the surname Smith, which made our search for a current address problematic, given the commonality of the surname. 

We then followed the trail by focusing on the marriage of one of her daughters, whose husband had a much more unusual name. 

We used a combination of social media and regional press reports to narrow down a possible location for the daughter, and then using information from this, we managed to locate a likely location for Mr H's real mother. Once we had this, we were able to revert to civil registration records, including the electoral roll, to find a current address for the subject. 

To ensure we had the right person, we consulted Land Registry data and Companies House data and were able to confirm we had indeed found Mr H's real mother.