Family of ? ?

Husband: ? ? ( - )
Wife: (unknown)

Husband: ? ?

Name: ? ?1
Sex: Male
Father: -
Mother: -


1Peter Smith, "Email from Peter Smith".
Email to Graham Hoadly sent 21 September 2004.
Assessment: Secondary evidence.
Text From Source: Hi Graham,

Thanks a lot for the photos. I really have very few photos of the family and my immediate family haven't been able to produce many so I have rather been hoping that I would make some contacts through Genes Reunited who might have some. So thanks. It is fantastic that in this digital age photos can be shared so easily.

I also love the early photo of Myrtle. I was amazed when I first saw it because my memories of Myrtle were in her seventies, I guess. A classic "old lady" to teenage eyes and I always picture her walking up Victoria Street with a fag hanging out of her mouth. And then in the old picture she just looks so galmourous. I would easily have believed it was a picture of a twenties or thirties film star. You somehow don't think that your older grandparents and aunts were young once.

I didn't recognise anyone else in the photos except Myrtles mum Mary (or May) which you had correctly guessed. Do you know the names of Maureens children? My younger brother Steve remembers going to Myrtles in the summer holidays and playing with a boy of his own age (he was born in 1965) called Vincent. he thought it was Maureens son. They used to play scrabble with Myrtle.

I remember the shop next to No 4 Victoria Street. Mainly I remember it being empty and then being knocked down. Our house was at the top of Victoria Street on the other side from No4 and directly opposite No1. I went back to look at Victoria Street a few years back and the street seemed so narrow and all the palces I used to play seemed very small!.The 1920s picture is interesting. I think it is the only time I have seen the street without cars parked down one side. I remember my Nan telling me that the street used to called Coffin Street but I don't know how true that is. It would presumably have been in pr Victorian times.

Chris Ellis's father was called Reginald (Reg) Ellis and as I understand it Myrtles father died in 1927 and the family was quite poor. As I said there were 13 children and they would have been aged between 8 and 29. Some time after that Myrtle and her Husband Reg Ellis (they married in 1923) went off to America, perumably to "seek their fortune" or the promise of a better life and Myrtles younger brother John (aka Jack) went with them. I don't know exactly when it was but I was told that Myrtle returned on her own pregnant with Chris which would have been 1929. I would imagine that things in America were pretty bad as it was the time of the gretat depression and theWall Street Crash so I don't suppose it was easy.

By a stroke of luck (and the internet) I made contact with John Orchard's granddaughter in America a couple of years ago. When she was 8 or 9 she had overheard her parents talking to her grandmother and it came out that her "Grandfather" wasn't her real grandfather but it was John Orchard from Ireland. (Some of Myrtles siblings were actually born in Ireland becuse their Father was stationed there with the Army). The Granddaughter, Debbie, asked about it the next day and opened up a "can of worms" as her parents and grandmother were angry that she had found out and told her never to raise the subject again. Unfortunately she could not let it rest and it has caused a rift between them ever since. The long and the short of it is that John Married Charlotte Mandell ,Debbie's Grandmother, sometime in the thirties and he had commited suicide in 1947 aged 37. I have got a copy of the death certificate and it is definitely the same John Orchard as it lists his date of birth , parents etc. The grandparents refuse point blank to talk about the subject so any further information about John will probably never be known. I have not found any trace at all of Reginald Ellis so I don't know if he stayed in America or not. Myrtle remarried (Trevor) in 1934 so must have got divorced sometime in between. I can imagine it could have been quite scandalous at thet time especially as the family were Catholics.

Any way I had better go now. I have attached a photo of Myrtles father Frederick William Orcahrd who was a Colour Sergeant in the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry. It was the thing that set me off on Family History and I look a bit like him though not such a well cultivated moustache!

Keep in touch

All the best

Graham Hoadly.