Can anyone help me to find 'great aunt Alice' please?

[Charney Jo]

I haven't been here for about 5 years (since I had my little boy) but the lure of genealogy is drawing me back in. However, I need your help please, if anyone can.

I remember going to my father's great aunt Alice's 100th birthday party in the mid- to late- 1970's. My father died a few years ago so I can't ask him but I have asked all of the surviving members of the family who mostly say that they remember her but don't know who she was. My aunt, the keeper of the family photos and stories, says she was was my great grandmother's (my father's mother's mother's) step-sister but she doesn't know any more. Now I have my great grandmother in my tree, her name was Mary Ann Elizabeth Williams, she was born around 1887 in St George in the East, London and married my ggf, Alfred Gibbons, at Bermondsey, London in 1905. On the marriage certificate it says that her father was named Edward and he was deceased. I remember struggling to find out more about her and her family before she married Alfred and I have no idea how to find out who Alice was.

Except, I can't help thinking that living to 100 is quite rare (although I am aware that it is not that rare) so can anyone think of anyway I can find her without tracing Edward, who seems very elusive? She definitely lived in London, probably Bermondsey or the surrounding area. I am stumped!

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

[JudithM]

I see on the 1911 census that her age was 28 giving a birth year around 1883 and that there is a corresponding birth entry in the GRO index for Mary Ann Elizabeth WILLIAMS q1 1883 ST George in the East vol 1c page 398

[AntonyM]

You should try and put together a full family tree for your great-grandmother's family to see where/how Alice fits in.

Your Great Grandmother is shown as 21 when she married in 1905, and she may have been a little older because there is a likely baptism record for her in Christ Church, Watney St (which is in St George in the East ) on 25/1/1883, showing her dob as 19/12/1882.

If you get a copy of her birth certificate you can then start to put the family together.

[Charney Jo]

Thanks Antony. Yes, I had 2 dates (I think she 'lost' years as she got older!) I will get her certificate. I was just curious to see if I could find Alice through another way. I wasn't sure if there was a quick way to search for people who died aged over 100! (Thought that would be too easy :o)

[Anne in Carlisle]

I think you could do a search on Ancestry for "Alice" with a birth year 100 or more years before a death date. You don't say what area of the country but that would narrow it down too. Might be worth a trawl to see if you recognise any surnames.
Anne

[AntonyM]

If you know the surname of Alice at the time of her death, and the place, it shouldn't be too hard to find the death record.

[Charney Jo]

Thanks Anne. That's the kind of thing. She would have died in London I expect. Bermondsey or the surrounding area. I will have a filter. I don't find the 'new' ancestry as easy to search as the old style one (must be getting old!)

Antony, I don't know her surname. She may have been a Williams, or something else.