One particular sentence in ‘The Value of Seeking Evidence’ article by David Annal in November 2022 Family Tree caught our eye: ‘… we mustn’t ignore the very strong possibility that the person we’re looking for was born with a different name to the one that he or she routinely used in later life.’ This is certainly true of Ro’s maternal grandmother, of whose first and last surnames (out of four!) we initially had no knowledge.
Despite having researched our family histories on and off for many years, and acquired a vast store of information along the way, mystery surrounded Ro’s mother’s maternal line.
Ro’s mother (Elizabeth Ann Gripper, known as Ann) was born to Geoffrey Frank and Krysia Gripper in Shropshire in 1928. Not long after her birth she was deposited in a children’s home (exactly where isn’t known) and her parents went abroad. Geoff was a mining engineer and went to work in what is now Malaysia. It could be that it was considered unsafe or unhealthy for a
