FINDING ROSEMARY

Rosemary aged 11 years

Rosemary was born in January 1942 and was adopted by Sydney and Rosamond Dibben in England.

In 1965  Rosemary gave birth to a son in Wellington, New Zealand who she simply named as "Baby Dibben" and she gave him up for adoption.

Last year I started looking for Rosemary for her son.

He had done a lot of background work years earlier but had come to a brick wall and couldn't get any further. He had children himself so wanted to know who he was and where he had come from. He had found a couple of marriages for Rosemary, the last one being in 1975 to an Alan White in Auckland. But then the trail went cold.

My journey to find Rosemary was to take me from one side of the world to the other.

I started by constructing a family tree and a timeline for Rosemary and discovered on ancestry.com that her uncle Harry, his wife and child had emigrated to New Zealand departing on 22 March 1951 on the ship "Rangitane" to Wellington. So they were living in Wellington at the time Rosemary had her baby.

Harry's son is still alive and living in the Hawkes Bay and a quick phone call established that he had met and known Rosemary  - she and husband Alan had moved to Australia. They remembered Rosemary as a very stylish person, who loved fast cars and drove a sports car but didn't seem very maternal. They even had an old address and thought they may have a photograph of her somewhere. They knew about the baby but had presumed since he was named "Baby Dibben" that he had died at birth.

All searches in Australia drew a blank - Rosemary and Alan weren't known at their previous address and did not show up in any historic or current electoral rolls, or property searches.

Back to the family tree! What about Rosemary's parents?
Using www.thegenealogist.co.uk  I found that Rosemary's father had died in 1967 in Newton Abbot, Devon, and mother Rosamond had remarried Alexander Gibbon in Kingsbridge, Devon in 1976.

Searching 192.com I found Rosamond on the electoral roll up until 2002 and she had been living in Devon. More importantly though I also found a Rosemary F White in Devon very close by and of the right age, living in Kingsbridge, Devon. She also appeared in a company report giving her birth date as Jan 1942, she was appointed to the company in 1995 and resigned in 1999.

A continuation of my searching led me to a possible marriage for Rosemary  in Kingsbridge, Devon in 1996, so I sent away for the marriage certificate. A couple of weeks later it arrived and confirmed that it was the right Rosemary. So I had Rosemary's new married name and an address for her, but she was not showing up in the latest electoral roll records.

A check of UK wills and probates www.gov.uk/search-will-probate gave me her mother Rosamond's death in 2004 and a click of a button later I had ordered her will. It only cost UK10 pounds and arrived electronically within the week. Rosemary was named as the executrix and benefactor of her mother's estate and it also gave her address.

I wrote to the address and a few weeks later received an email from ex-husband Dennis who told me he didn't know where Rosemary was but it was rumoured she had moved to the South of France.

So back to internet searching. I found a reference for Rosemary as a member of RNA Aquitaine in France. I emailed the club secretary and received a detailed reply from one of their members who had known Rosemary on and off for over 50-years.

Rosemary had joined the WRNS in 1959 and qualified as a Met Officer in 1960. She had been stationed with HMS Falcon RNAS Halfar in Malta.

At one stage she worked in the control tower at Sydney Airport and had become a helicopter pilot at a vast farm west of Sydney.

After leaving the UK in 2004 she moved to live in Normandy, France, and then to the Dordogne Region where she lived until 2-weeks prior to her death. She moved to Switzerland to undergo treatment for her cancer and to have an operation, which was tragically unsuccessful.

So Rosemary had been found, but unfortunately, she had passed away on 16 February 2012 in Switzerland. She certainly lived a full and eventful life. With the information I have been given  I was able to provide her son with an account of Rosemary and her life so that he could have closure. He has also made contact with his relative in the Hawke's Bay and finally was able to see  photographs of his mum Rosemary.

Rowland William Carter

The Carter family outside their home in Otago, NZ

Finding out what happened to her father Rowland William Carter, has been a lifelong quest for his 89-year old daughter.

I was contacted by the family to see if I could help find out what happened to Rowland or at least to find some answers so that they could have closure.

Solving family mysteries and finding people is what I do.

Rowland was born in Palmerston South, South Island of New Zealand on 19th May 1889, he was the youngest son of Samuel Metherel Carter, and Emma Essex.

On 24 August 1914 he enlisted with the Otago Mounted Rifles at Gore, he was a tall man for the time at just over 6 foot and his occupation was a sheep farmer. He fought in Gallipoli, Egypt, and France and was honourably discharged at the end of the war after spending time in a hospital in London.

Rowland returned to New Zealand and studied at university. He then travelled to the Falkland Islands between 1925-1929, where he served as a Stock Inspector for the NZ Government, and  where his daughter was born. When she was 4-years old her father travelled to Chile and Argentina and then on to London. He set up kennels in London and was there when WW2 broke out. He wrote to the family for a period of time but the letters stopped in late 1939 and the family never heard from him again.

So what had happened to Rowland? Had he got caught up in war-time Europe, did he become a casualty of this conflict after surviving the Great War? Or had he simply started a new life?

As always I started my search by compiling a family tree for Rowland and a timeline so I would know which records to start searching and in the correct time period.

The 1939 Register on www.findmypast.co.uk was an obvious first port of call as Rowland was known to be in the UK at this time. The Register was taken on 29th September 1939 and listed the personal details of every civilian in GB and Northern Island.

 There were two men with the surname Carter who had the exact same date of birth as Rowland, but I was able to eliminate them both as not being the man I was looking for.

Findmypast is also an excellent source for passenger lists and sure enough, there was an entry for Rowland William Carter, age 55, returning to NZ on the S.S Northumberland which sailed from London on 6th March 1946.

I moved my search back to NZ to access his WW1 file and learn more about his war, hospitalisation and discharge. There were two entries for men named Rowland W Carter on the archives NZ site https://www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ - his WW1 Military Personnel file and a probate record in Taupo dated 1978.

Most of the WW1 files have been digitised so I downloaded his WW1 file which contained 27 pages. The first 7 pages were details of his enlistment, postings, and service. Page 8 was totally unexpected - it was a Department of Internal Affairs Notification of Death on 29 May 1977 with all the details matching his regiment and service number. So Rowland had returned to Taupo in NZ but had never contacted any family members.

A check on ancestry gave me a cemetery record for Corporal R William Carter buried in the RSA Lawn Section Plot 24 of the Taupo Cemetery, the date of death matching the Notification of Death in his military file.

I ordered his probate record as it could possibly contain more information and was able to view free of charge at the Auckland National Archives office located near the airport.

From the probate record I learned that Rowland had been living in Taupo for at least 15 years as recorded by the local Post Office Supervisor, George Nathaniel Gatchell of Taupo. For approximately 3 years Rowland lived in a caravan in the grounds of Crystal Brook Fishing Lodge at Waitahanui which was owned by George and his wife.

Rowland then moved to live at the Salvation Army Old Peoples Home at Wharengi. Rowland told George that he would leave him all his possessions when he died and he wrote a very basic will to that effect. This “will” was deposited with the Salvation Army for safe keeping and when Rowland died they produced it.

In clause 9 of the affidavit made by George, he states:

"That I am the sole residuary legatee named in the said will. The said deceased was unmarried and had no children and no next of kin of whom I am aware."

The historical death index (https://www.govt.nz/) showed that George had died in 2004 , were there still any descendants living?

 So for whatever reason, Rowland came back to New Zealand and chose to settle in Taupo. He lived a quiet life, keeping himself to himself and never mentioned having a family.

The family now know what became of Rowland, but not the why. They said that he suffered from nightmares when he returned from the Great War and had flashbacks. The family don't know why he made certain decisions along the way but they cannot judge his actions as they don't know why things turned out the way they did.  But at least now they know where he ended his days and have closure.

Who was Mum's Dad?

Whilst at boarding school in the mid 1960's I discovered a family mystery which has taken me over 40 years to finally solve.

We had to write letters home every week and once a month had to write to another family member. I chose my grandmother. The letter was written and I addressed the envelope: Miss Madge May Shepherd, The Mill House, Upwell. My house mistress seized the letter and proceeded to tell me how stupid I was as my grandmother could not be a Miss, she had to be a Mrs  or I wouldn't be here and she wouldn't be my grandmother. I readdressed the envelope and the letter was sent. But I knew she was a Miss.

My mother refused to give me answers and it was forgotten.

Fast forward to 1996 - my grandmother Madge died and 3 months later so did my mother. My sister and I inherited a property along with my mum's sister Janet and we found we have a Great Aunt Edna as a tenant. We had never heard of her so decided to pay her a visit. Edna turned out to be Madge's cousin and they had been the best of friends. Suddenly the question I had wanted answers to all those years ago sprang to mind. Edna seemed surprised when I asked her if she knew who mum's dad was. "Why everyone knows who that was, it was Eric Large, the baker at Three Holes!" Edna proceeded to tell us that Madge and Eric wanted to get married but her father James would not give his consent - Eric wasn't good enough. So Madge got pregnant thinking that her father would then say yes. But when James confronted Eric and said you need to marry my daughter, Eric refused saying he hadn't been good enough before so he wouldn't.

Madge May Shepherd circa 1928

I can't image what it would have been like for Madge and her daughter Jean to be living at The Mill house in Upwell and Eric coming by regularly to pick up flour for his bakery in the near by village.

So I had my answer but was it true? I couldn't get anyone else to confirm the story and there was no documentation which proved that Eric was indeed my grandfather. I researched the Large family and put onto a private tree but didn't share with anyone in the family.

Recently I decided to have my DNA tested using ancestry and sent my sample off in the post. 8-weeks later my result was in. And yes Edna had been right, I had matches with 3rd and 4th cousins through the Large family.

The book "Three Holes, Portrait of a Fen Village, by Anne Jackson, Audrey Carnson & Rita Cuss contains brief information about the Large family and includes a photo of my great grandfather Phillip Large and his wife Mahalia Large.
I am know trying to find out more about my new family and time to start breaking down some more mysteries.