From information from other family members, Lois Olive Russell was married to Squadron Leader Frederick White, before marrying Percy Bernard (the Earl of Bandon) in 1946. Today, I decided to see if I could find a record for this marriage to Frederick Arthur White.
I first tried Ancestry.com.au, but there seemed to be no sign of the marriage. I then decided to try Trove, and I decided to look for articles for “Frederick Arthur White”, and I found an article that appeared to be about their marriage:
Since I hadn’t been able to find the marriage at Ancestry, I decided to try the FreeBDM website. I selected Marriages, Surname White Spouse surname Russell Date range Mar 1924 to Dec 1924. The marriage was in the September quarter in 1924:
White Frederick A Spouse surname Russell St Geo H Sq vol 1a page 1161
I then clicked on the page number, and confirmed that the spouse was Lois Russell.
I then decided to see why I hadn’t been able to find the marriage at Ancestry. This time, I decided to look for the marriage of a Frederick White in 1924, in the UK and Ireland collections. The reason I hadn’t been able to find the marriage was because Lois was indexed on Ancestry as Lis Russell. I checked the image of the index, and the name is clearly Lois Russell, so I have submitted the correction.
After I had found the marriage entry, I found a Public Member Tree at Ancestry that showed that Frederick and Lois had married 7 July 1924. This family tree had shown that Frederick had died about 1951 in Nairobi, Kenya, so I decided to search for any more information I could find for him.
The first record I found was in the England, Andrews Newspaper Index Cards, 1790-1976 collection:
There was also an entry for Frederick in the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, 1973-1995 collection:
Name: Frederick Arthur White
Death Date: 9 Feb 1953
Death Place: Kenya
Probate Date: 21 May 1954
Registry: Nairobi, Kenya
Now that I had an approximate birth year (1901), and a residence (Chislehurst, Kent) for him, I was able to find more records for him. The first record provided a date of birth
Ancestry.com, “Great Britain, Royal Aero Club Aviators’ Certificates, 1910-1950,” database and images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc (http://home.ancestry.com.au/ : accessed 16 Nov 2016); Frederick Arthur White, birth date 7 July 1901, birth place Chislehurst, Kent.
Ancestry.com, “Great Britain, Royal Aero Club Aviators’ Certificates, 1910-1950,” database and images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc (http://home.ancestry.com.au/ : accessed 16 Nov 2016); Frederick Arthur White, birth date 7 July 1901, birth place Chislehurst, Kent.
The next record was from the England & Wales, Christening Index, 1530-1980 collection:
Name: Frederick Arthur White
Gender: Male
Christening Date: 27 Oct 1901
Christening Place: Chislehurst, Kent, England
Father: Arthur Frederick White
Mother: Helen
The final record I looked for was the 1911 census, which showed that Frederick was living with his mother Helen at Cookham Dene, Manor Park, Chislehurst. Also in the household were his sisters Agnes A White, age 12, Julia M White age 10, and Katherine White age 5, and 5 servants. The census shows that Helen was a widow. (1911 census of England, Cookham Dene, Chislehurst, Frederick A. White, son, age 9; digital images, ancestry.com, ancestry.com (http://home.ancestry.com.au/ : accessed 16 Nov 2016); citing RG 78 PN 3706, RG 14, registration district (RD) Bromley, sub district (SD) Chislehurst, enumeration district (ED) 2, schedule number (SN) 104)
