How to find any possible siblings

[way2serious]

Hi. Firstly sorry for all my questions especially the daft ones but I am just beginning to research my family and am very new to all this. I think that my paternal grandmother may have had at least one sibling. What is the best way to try and find out if this is the case? I haven’t yet joined any paid websites such as Ancestry. Thank you

free bmd. Birth records after about 1910 have mother’s maiden name as well as surname. If you find your grandmother you can look for similar names as parents.

The Mormon index FamilySearch is also free and I think gives the mother's maiden name. Not sure when the births stop but know they do go up to the 1950s.

Census

That depends on the time frame . Last census available was 1921 and many grandparents were not born by then. 1939 register might show some but may miss them being part of the same household.

Just to add to the above, if the sibling was born up until 1934 then you can also search for free on the General Register Office website here:

https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/indexes_search.asp

If you enter "birth" and then the year. You can select a range of +/- 2 years so you can search eg 1930-1934 in one go.

You then need to enter the surname and sex so you will need to search separately for boys and girls.

This will give you a list of people with that surname that were registered in those years and whereabouts they were born. If you go back to 1925 then it will also give the mothers maiden name as well.

For births after 1934 (and before 1934 as well!) then Freebmd is a great resource, especially if you know the mother's maiden name and what county they were born in.

Freebmd also allows you to use wildcards. For example, I have a name in my family tree that has two different spellings, (one that ends with an "e" and one that doesn't).

For example if you had a last name that was spelt either Wilson or Wilsone then you can enter Wils* and it will pick up both variations of that name.

Thank you everyone for your advice. I will start following the steps that you have all suggested. Thanks again.

Can also be worth searching for baptism records too. Probably not so helpful with 20th century births, but I have picked up a few unregistered births through baptism records.

Also bear in mind that names can be misspelled. And yes, as a PP poster said, censuses can also be a good way to pick up on siblings.

FreeBMD is good. You can just put in your grandmother's father's surname and mother's surname and search for 'births' within a date range. Don't narrow it down any more than that by choosing a place or anything, not unless both the surnames are very common and you get too many hits.