Genealogy Chat

I am somewhat new to this game and recently got the birth certificate for my great grandfather hoping to trace his father. I am having great trouble reading it. I think that his profession was music printer but i will be damned if I can read the address. This is a bit of a blow as if I could then perhaps there was a census that would have him and his birthday on it. As it is I think I am stuck. I have put a scan on the Internet at this address http://213.254.189.45/pic/birth.jpg Hopefully there are people about that have lots of experience in reading such things and if anyone can decipher the address or come up with a next step or both then i would be much obliged Many thanks Andy Lear

My current guesses range from Jubilee to Antritor! This is a complete bummer. First letter is probably a U and the uprights are probably ts, but the other letters are anybody's guess. Unfortunately, the certificate is so early that the street may very well have changed name since then, and the invaluable Lost London Streets website doesn't cover the letter U. I'm sure that there are some clever people out there who can guess it, but all is not lost if not. The Family Record Centre in Islington has street indexes, while I think that the Selon Index covers Southwark in 1851, so one way or another you ought to be able to find the family. Good luck!

My initial guess is '34 Waterloo Rd, Southwark'. Now to find out if there was such a road!! The nearest one in the current A-Z appears to be Waterloo Road that goes from St. George's Circus to Waterloo Station. Anybody know whether any of it would have been in the St. George the Martyr Southwark registration district? (Sub-district London Road) Actually, looking at the A-Z again, London Road is more or less a continuation of Waterloo Road on the other side of St. George's Circus so it seems pretty likely to me. The more I look at it the more convinced I am that it says 'Waterloo Road', but if only one of the other words began with a W to check! Kate.

Hooray for sensible suggestions. There's a whacking great Waterloo Road, heading into St George's Circus to the south and up to Waterloo Bridge in the north, on my A- Z.

www(.)multimap(.)com/map/browse(.)cgi?pc=SE1+8UL If you google this /remove brackets (it says not found ...... If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking on the following link -so click on that) This shows a map which has Waterloo road in Southwark,so I would tend to agree with Kate Deborah

Armed with the image you now have, you could always argue that it was too faint/smudgy etc, and ask for a modern copy, and let the GRO try their hand at desciphering it, but I'm sure that Kate is right. You do have two bites at the cherry, and the father's address does look like Waterloo.

I thought it was Atherstone or Utherstone road, number 34 or 311, now it looks clearer that you have mentioned Waterloo road.Sent Andrew pm anyway. Heather