Grandfather still alive? Where?

[peachybums]

My mums dad died last year and was heartbreaking as he was like a father to me and it got me thinking about my dads dad. He divorced and left my grandmother when my father was 2 years old and left for south africa, i know his name and date of birth but thats all my grandmother will tell me. Id love to know if hes still alive and if hes well but i dont know where to start. I dont know when or where they were married but i know the year he left. My dad wont help as he said hed rather not know after all these years. What can i do? I dont want to pay a fortune looking as money is tight and i have 3 young children.

There are some genealogy sites where you can post messages for free for a while or up to a certain point. Could you ask the British Consulate in SA if they help you at all - there will obviously have been emigration papers in his name, with his brith date on. Not sure how else you could find him. He could be anywhere, including back in the UK. You can check births, deaths and marriages online (not always for free I don't think)to see if there's anyone with that name being registered as dead in the UK. If he was in the military, you could also find records of his death if he was killed in WW2. HTH a bit.

Email me peachybums - bubblerockjl2 @aol.com (no space)

Check out the South African archives online, link here: (www.national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm) then click 'Search'
If you are not sure where in the country he lived, start with a search of the RSA database (all of SA). If he has died a little while back (or divorced or otherwise had any legal dealings in court) you will find a reference him and to which archives in South Africa the records are kept in. From there, once you have a positive hit, you can hire a local researcher to go to the archives and make copies of the documents for you, cost circa £20 a look up.