I don't know where this is going to go and I don't know if I have time to get to the end before I have to go out in the gale to visit my mum, but here goes....!
I didn't think this death was particularly likely to be connected, as the birth date is the wrong year and it just felt like the wrong place in the country. Plus no Day to Mitten marriage:
Name: Ethel Constance V Mitten
Death Age: 96
Birth Date: 7 Jul 1888
Registration Date: Feb 1985
Registration district: Birmingham
Inferred County: West Midlands
Volume: 32
Page: 339
Then, 1939 Register, Ethel's dob gets better:
93 South Road Birmingham
William A Mitten 12 Dec 1886 married postman
Ethel C Mitten 7 Jul 1886 married unpaid domestic duties
Marriage:
Marriages Dec 1918
Freemantle Ethel C V Mitten Tamworth 6b 721
Mitten Albert W Freemantle Tamworth 6b 721
So, wrong surname for Ethel and his forenames switched about. I wondered if she was a war widow, but 1) no prev marriage I could find and 2) two sons born in the 1920s surname Mitten, mmn Freemantle (there are two hidden entries with Ethel and Wm in 1939 who are probably these children).
I spent a lot of time trying to find a birth reg for Ethel Freemantle with no luck. However, I saw this tree:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tr...=successSource
which shows Ethel as being born in Stratford Essex which is where Ethel C V Day was baptised (for some reason when I copied and pasted the baptism yesterday the place didn't copy, but it was def Stratford).
Also, the tree owner has Ethel's mother as a Clara, though surname Marsh and no dates etc for Clara. There's a school admission doc attached to the tree which shows Oliver W Freemantle as the father.
Here they are in 1901 with Ethel b West Ham and Clara about the right age to be Clara Church/Day, b Poplar which is close enough to Limehouse.
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...c&pId=15346575
The next stumbling bloc is that Oliver Freemantle and Clara Marsh married in 1890, so who is Clara?
Here's the marriage:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...48&pId=2717673
Woo hoo!! Father of the widowed bride is James Church!!
