John Cooke ( Cook), Thomas Alfred b1889 (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, November 03, 2023, 01:27 (177 days ago) @ billcs777

You're very welcome !
I see you're a night owl like me, or perhaps you're one of the many forum users from t'other side of the world, not that it matters of course, all are very welcome.

Re using the wildcard for FreeBMD, I must admit to have never done so, despite being a regular site user for the last 15 or so years haha. I prefer to use as little filtering as possible, as sometimes that hides relevant hits, and I do serval searches, each using a spelling variant - the beauty of the FreeBMD site is it displays the results in a format thats easy and quick to browse thro by eye.

Regarding why he was born in Cheltenham, I'd suggest it was perhaps down to his father's profession - I'd be interested to know what that was ?. I wonder if the British Army was involved, the town was very popular with retired Army and/or Empire types. Or similarly if was around the time of WW1 or the 1939 register when Gloster & Cheltenham had several aerospace/munitions factories ?
https://www.cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/collection/cheltenham-history-4-the-victorian-town-...
Of course, that's assuming they were living there - when in fact they may have just been visiting, I don't know ?. Not applicable here, but it seems to have been a common theme in the old days for a young mother to return home to her parents to have her first-born child, before the days of NHS etc of course.

Earlier today I researched another Forest family, according to most Census' from the 1860s thro to 1911 and their deaths in the 60s, the family had always lived in Cinderford, East dean. Yet for just one census, the 1901, they were all settled and working in north Birmingham !

Similarly, my Grandfather's family originated and lived most their lives in Longhope, since the 1850s thro to the 1980s in various generations, so I was very surprised to find that during the 1901 census his family were all living in Liverpool of all places !. I've no real idea why this happened, it was only for a few years. At the time my Grandad's father was training to run a pub there, a business my Grampy himself got into in Longhope after a few decades as a wood turner, taking after his own father who had presumably decided the beer trade and/or big city wasn't for him, as by 1911 they'd all returned to Longhope where my G-Grandad and then my Grandad joined the local sawmills and wood turnery - all very odd indeed !