Does anyone have the surname PENNOCK? I have this book, you see ......

[Desiderata]

I bought it in an Oxfam shop in Coventry seven, maybe eight years ago.

I believe it's quite valuable, but I would like it to be returned to the family of the man who originally bought it.

His name was J H Pennock, with PIP in brackets. He was a soldier in the Great War. He was in Poperinghe (near Ypres) in October 1917.

He was in the late Signals H/79 Bde, RFA

He was entered as a clark to TocH (Talbot House) in December 1922.

The Book is Tales of Talbot House (1st Edition) by P B Clayton.

Sorry for the monotone delivery of this OP, but I wanted to get all the facts in from the off

So ... anyone have the surname Pennock?

Oh, it's very tricky, Mercy, not really expecting anyone will be able to help. She's my mother's birth mother, all we have is name on birth certificate and entry on electoral register in 1945 (so she must have been at least 21). We even employed one of those adoption private detectives to no avail. Was a private adoption so no records - apparently court records were destroyed in a fire decades before my mother found out she was adopted.

Guess it was her maiden name given she was having her baby adopted and there's no father's name on the certificate. Lots of illegitimate babies in 1945!

Message withdrawn

Can I just say how pleased I am to have been part of this Pennock business?
I too was sent the photograph of Joseph and his wife (taken in 1973)... he looks like a nice old chap.

Edam - your problem, as you say, is much more tricky. Are you hoping that your biological grandmother is still alive? Can we assume she was born in England, and not Ireland?

Do you think she married after your mother's adoption? If so, then a search for post-1984 deaths of women named Maureen Cecilia might be useful (there are none for a Maureen Cecilia Murphy). If she died prior to 1984, then there's no way to search for her death under a married name, but you could still trawl the indexes looking for her death as a Murphy or her marriage.

So... I did a search for post-1984 deaths, and found:
Dumbrell, 1922-1995, Eastbourne
Mudd, 1922-1995, Cleveland
Price, 1924-2002, Taunton
Walker, 1924-1997, Ryedale

With the exception of Walker, which will be a miserable chore, it shouldn't be too difficlt to browse from 1945 onwards in the marriage indexes.

UPDATE

Thanks to everyone on this thread for your kind, thoughtful comments. Edam, I wish you all the luck in the world with your search. I hope the following will give you hope.

I have just received another email from J H Pennock's great-grandson. I hope and trust that he will not mind my doing this, but I think that everyone on this thread deserves to read this ...

'This is so sweet. I cannot honestly believe it. Likewise, how it ended up in Coventry baffles me also.

I don't know what you believe in things regarding fate, and I am not sure what I personally believe also. However the strange thing though is that my parents have just went on a break for their 25th wedding anniversary of a tour to Gloucestershire and Oxford areas - and a visit took them to Coventry! For the first time in their lives they went to Coventry yesterday. My dad is Joseph's grandson. That is somewhat strange to me.

I am curious as to what Joseph wrote back then in the 1920s. It is a note saying this book belongs to J H Pennock, etc. This is so fantastic - it will be treasured, I can guarantee that. Joseph and his family lost literally everything except themselves in the (wartime) bombings of 1941. They built up their lives from that. To have something of his from before that time is well ... I am truly speechless.'

Well, that's about the sum of it

Awww... even cold logical Trouvere teared up a little at that.

.... I thought you might, Trouvere

Now I hope you understand why I think you're a smasher!

< wonderful >

That is truely amazing

desi only just seen this thread-

lovely, well done, and trouvere too

how wonderful desi you must feel all warm inside, giving something back to a family who have no material memories is something pretty special and something the family will be over whelmed by

you really are a good person

Thanks, girls

what a fabulous thread

Books like that are beyond value, Kerry

This is fantastic, how kind of you Desiderata, and what detective work, Trouvere.

I have just found this thread and it is truly heart-warming

thank you for sharing it

This is the most amazing thread!

I have been meaning to do my family tree for ages - has inspired me all over again for some reason.

Well done Desiderata and Trouvere.

Kerry, the book is valued at approx. £750.00. This is according to a clerk at Talbot House in Belgium who's lived there all his life. It has not been valued by an expert, however. I've done a bit of research over the years, and I'm fairly confident of the book's material value.

The reason I am so delighted with this outcome is that there is no way the family will ever sell it. I harboured a doubt, or rather a fear, that the search would reveal someone I didn't take to, someone who would simply sell it and not give a fiddlers fark about his great -grandfather.

But quite the opposite is true. Quite, quite the opposite!

[teehee at fiddlers fark]

oooh just read this thread from beginning to end ... what a lovely,lovely story. Thank you for sharing the email with us Desiderata - it's fantastic that this find means so much to his grandson

Wow Desi, what a fantastic thread. Well done to you and Trouvere. It's a wonderful thing you're doing and so lovely to read that email.

Desi, that is such a moving ending to the story. Love the email from the great-grandson. Amazing that the family lost everything in WW2 and now you've given them back a link to JHP.

Trouvere, wow, that is incredibly helpful, thanks. We have to assume she's no longer alive (she'd be in her 80s) and no, we don't think she was born in England as my mother searched the register from 1924 backwards with no success. So presumably she came from Ireland. Where searching for a Maureen Murphy would be needle/haystack time. Adoption detective pointed out Cecilia could be a confirmation name, making it even harder...

My mother isn't trying to find a mother figure as such, she would just like to know the story, as it is all so mysterious. She only found out she was adopted by accident in her 40s, when her parents had both been dead for 20 years. Private adoption/no court records/no surviving adopted relatives make it incredibly hard to know what went on. But there are odd coincidences - her mother lived at a house that I walked past every week when I was in London, ds was born at the same hospital as my mother, unknown to her, my mother's parents always parked in that road when they visited the city...

Trouvere, how do you do a freebmd search? Clicked your link but get no results. Would you be an absolute angel and do me a brief idiot's guide?