Dear editor,
My name is Derek Roft. I wonder if you can help me by publishing this plea for information about my family history. Here goes…
My mother’s maiden name was Reynolds. She was born at 14 Adelaide Street in St Albans. During lockdown my cousin and I traced the Reynolds family tree back to the mid 1700s and still in Hertfordshire. We completed this task a couple of months ago.
I then went through the Reynolds family tree with the aid of the 1939 Register of aliens. It is as good as a Census info-wise giving the addresses.
I discovered that there were two other families in Adelaide Street with the name Reynolds at numbers 28 and 33. ‘A coincidence,’ I thought. But no. They were slightly related but you would need to go back to the 1820s for the link-up.
Then I discovered that there was a connection with six sons who went to fight in the Great War whose names were Arthur Reynolds born 1877, William 1884, Alfred Frederick 1892, Edward 1894, Leonard 1897 and Bertram 1900 (he probably lied about his age).
Of the six, William and Edward never returned. The family originated from Tyttenhanger, a rural area south east of St Albans towards Colney Heath.
It was William’s widow Rose who lived at 33 Adelaide Street. William and Rose’s oldest married son lived at 28 Adelaide Street.
The next thing I did was look at the Hertfordshire Geanlogy site run by Chris Reynolds (no relation) and I saw a query posted on the “Ask Chris” page in 2009 by a lady called Ruth Sawford from came from Bedford.
She was seeking help with her research. Reynolds was her maiden name. She referred to a panel photo which was in the Herts Ad in 1916 of the sons.
We have one also entitled “A St Albans Fighting Family” published in March 1917 showing five faces my grandfather, two brothers, a brother in law and his brother. Of those the brother in law never returned and his name is on the War Memorial
Here is the long shot. I am wondering, hoping that Ruth Sawford still lives in Bedford, reads your newspaper and could possibly contact me. My email address is drderekroft3@gmail.com
If she does that we could maybe exchange info and either I could bring Ruth up to date regarding the family tree or vice versa.
Thank you,
Derek Roft
Birmingham
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