Back in February I wrote about my involvement with an art project linked to the British Home Children who were sent to Canada. At the time I spoke to Carol Black as part of a live broadcast for BBC Radio Wales and wrote about her story in my blog.
Since then the face of the abandoned two-year-old George Llewelyn Thomas has been haunting me. It was especially poignant since Carol’s mother-in-law (George’s daughter Nancy) had lived her life without knowing if her father had any family in the UK and was desperate to know more.
George Llewelyn Thomas aged two.
George's mother was Elizabeth Mary Haines who married John Thomas in 1903 in Ystradyfodwg. By the time George was born in 1909 (with a different father) Elizabeth and John already had two children; Nancy and John Haydn Thomas.
Despite the common occurrence of the Thomas surname I was happy to learn that the baptisms for the parish of St Johns in Ystradyfodwg had been digitised and were available to browse for free at the Glamorgan County Archives.
I quickly located the entries for both Nancy, who was born on 27 September 1904 and John Haydn Thomas on 6 September 1906. This enabled me to cross-reference his date of birth on the death indexes with the search facility provided by Ancestry.co.uk.
Bingo! There was only one entry which matched the date of birth. Ordering the certificates via the General Register Office website meant I only had to wait a week to discover that he was married to Ada Thomas and they lived in Essex.
My next step was to trace John and Ada's marriage in 1941 and repeat the process of ordering the certificate and waiting a week. This time the evidence revealed that John Haydn Thomas had previously married Hetty Grace Chiles. This was a break through moment because it meant I could locate the birth of their only child John in 1931.
However, my joy at finding a living first cousin for George's daughter Nancy was slightly overshadowed when I spoke to John and learned that in fact he had never met his father. He did, however, have a recollection of his grandmother Lizzie Thomas (nee Haines) visiting Coventry, where she later ran the Angel Hotel.
And the good news does not end there.
Thanks to the fact that genealogy and the internet are perfect partners I discovered a distant relative of Elizabeth Mary Haines who had posted her family tree on Genes Reunited.
Incredibly Dianna Chandler, who is descended from Henry James Haines, lives in Canada just a short distance from Carol and Nancy and a few weeks after the item was broadcast Dianna, Nancy and Carol met up.
The two daughters of George Llewelyn Thomas with Henry Haines' granddaughter Dianna.
After their meeting Dianna sent me this message, which promptly made me smile like a Cheshire cat.
Hi Cat.
I would like to thank you for connecting me, through your radio program, with long lost 'Haines' relatives, that I was unaware of. I have since invited them to my home. Our lunch proved to be so successful we are staying in contact.
And finally the icing on the cake...
The Haines family. Picture courtesy of Dianna Chandler.
This fantastic sepia photograph, which Dianna has now given a copy of to George's family, shows his mother Elizabeth Mary Haines (bottom left) the youngest daughter. Dianna's grandfather Henry is in the back row far left. The older couple in the middle are the parents John and the formidable Annie Bryn Haines.
I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again but... I do love my job.
