I did message a supposed 3rd or 4th cousin who didn’t have a tree to look at. No reply

I can't remember much about PHH. Why are you sure he was born 1885? I think I'd ask the workhouse to search from 1880.

As for the Italian descent there must be something as your daughters have that 2%. My husband, however, is often asked if he is Greek or similar and there is not one drop on non UK blood in him. He just tans well. So PHH may be unaware of the relationship, or it was quite distant. Or another thought, there may be illegitimacy with an Italian the culprit.

PS: I, too, was hoping for a break through.

PPS: Is it possible he was related to his wife? This would make the DNA harder to work out.

1885 has been consistent as a year of birth. That’s one thing he was consistent about. Marriage cert, death cert, army record,1911 census, 1939 register all give a year of birth of 1885. Even if he had been born earlier there would have been some mention of him in the workhouse records, discharge for example.

Rotherham record office only hold workhouse birth records from 1848 to 1879 then 1912 to 1938. What they did search was the religious creed register. That gives name, when admitted and discharge as well as religious creed.


Relationship to his wife? No, highly unlikely. She was Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire born and bred. I have all sides of her family well researched.

Peter was discharged from the army in Ponterfract, Yorkshire and was walking to London to start a new life and he got to Ashby he met Lily and stayed there.

I think it's most likely he changed his name between 1901 and 1903, probably as soon as he left home. I think before that he is hidden in plain sight and may have never been in an institution.

I think he knew the people who didn't want him very well, rather than being a foundling, or whatever.

I wonder why he changed his name though? I doubt anyone from his family was going to look for him.

AN thought that perhaps he’d been in trouble with the police.

Yes, that's very possible.

OH used to think his GF had changed his name because he hated his father (GF said awful things about his father, whose name he would never divulge) and wanted to escape the family home. Turned out GF never knew his father or the man he may have thought was his father. He didn't have a male role model at all.

He changed his name (not his date or place of birth though) because he was in trouble with the army and the police. His was aged 15/16 when he reinvented himself. His new name had no apparent connection/similarity to his old name and we don't know how he chose it.

That scenario sounds very probable for PHH. How did you work it all out?

After OH's GF had changed his name and married, he was still a bit of a naughty boy! He was involved in several petty crimes which were reported in the newspaper. One report quoted his address, but not where he was living with his wife in Southampton, but an address in Cork near where he was born (I think he hoped his wife wouldn't find out what he had been up to!). This address appeared in the army record of a boy soldier who we had shortlisted as being born in the right place and date. I had originally excluded this boy soldier as I thought I had found his death with the same name, but it turned out that was a different individual. Once we knew both names had a link to the same address, everything unravelled very quickly.

As with so many brick walls, it only seems to take one chink for the whole thing to come crashing down. Just with PHH we haven't found the chink!

Then there's the chance of a DNA match to consider....