Hi Deborah,

Thanks for responding.

I had better give you a bit of background - I live in Australia and my father, Norman Bertram Peter Locke was the son of Ernest Lock and grandson of Samuel and Elizabeth Lock. Ernest is actually who I am really keen to find out about.

Ernest married Ivy Evelyn Grace Finn in Bournemouth in 1916 and they had 2 boys - dad and his brother Eric John Locke. (This seems to be the first time that the "e" appears on our name). Ernest left the family home sometime around 1920 and I have been unable to find any clear reference to him since.

Ivy struggled to raise the boys with no support and they ultimately were placed in the Barnado's home and came to Australia in 1929. Dad never saw his mother again, and as far as I can find out Ivy never heard from Ernest again, although apparently she heard that he may have married again, that he may have lost a leg and that he died around 1948.

I would love to find out what happened to my grandfather Ernest and if he did have another family, who would be my second cousins.

My reason for looking for Samuel is that I am hoping that some other of his offspring's descendants may be looking at their family history and might know something about Ernest.

With regard to your response and questions, the information that I put in my original post is all I have, and has been gleaned from census records and other searches through the Find My Past website. I'm surprised at the list of Samuel's children you provided, I have only found 7 of them - Elizabeth, Maud, Gertrude, William, Ernest and Bertie. Elizabeth appeared in the 1881 census as a baby but does not appear in any subsequent ones. I have not seen any references to Samuel, Ethel, Beatrice or Fredrick in any census up until 1911. They may have all died very young.

The other interesting thing is that in all my searches none of the Lock's have a second name, but your list shows 7 of the 11 children with 2nd names.

I was't aware that the GRO has a searchable database, I've just registered and had a quick look for Ernest's death but the only one that looks like a maybe (age 59 in 1949) is Ernest Norman. The second name is a bit sus but it is my fathers name.

Cheers

Mike