Geographical gaps and genealogy guesswork

Paddington wasn't the pretty, upmarket neighbourhood I had envisaged when planning my trip to London. Somehow I had merged my impressions of the old Victorian tube station with those of paddington Bear and come up with a picture of bright windows and cosy interiors. What I found was a bleak area crouching under a leaden sky, foul-smelling gutters and lots of traffic noise.

What was more, we were coming to a location that was extremely significant in terms of my genealogical research but for which I had very few addresses.

Here's what I knew about Paddington:

First, Maude Alice Parker and David Scott Ritchie had been living here at the time of their wedding in February 1902. In particular, they had been living in Albert Street. However, my husband and daughter had struggled to find an Albert Street address that seemed to fit the facts. So we could not visit the place where David and Maude had first lived as a married couple.

Second, their marriage had happened in Paddington. But I had forgotten to write down any details. My daughter had said something about a registry office, I thought, but none of us could be sure. So visiting the location where the couple signed the marriage register was out of the question too.

Third, my grandfather David Scott Ritchie had been born at Paddington Green, but that could either refer to the Paddington Green Children's Hospital or the general vicinity of Paddington Green. The fact that we had not yet found a birth certificate could suggest that David had been born at home and his birth not registered at all—except that, as I said elsewhere, Maude came from a family where such events were scrupulously recorded. Whether or not David was born at the hospital, though, that building still stands. it is now a health centre offering daytime consultations and its interior has no doubt been significantly modernised. nevertheless, the inscription that identifies it as once having been the Children's Hospital can be clearly seen.

The entrance to the building is directly opposite an entrance to Paddington Green, the park, so we paused there to take photographs. If my grandfather was indeed born there at the end of march 1902, I reflected, the weather in London would not have been very different from today. Perhaps it would have been a bit sunnier and the grass would have sprouted clumps of cheerful daffodils, but the wind would still have plucked at David Scott Ritchie Sr's coat as he turned into the gate

and hurried up the steps.

Of all the images that stayed with me after we left Paddington Green, this is the one that remains. A young father going to see his wife and newborn baby. Feelings of excitement mingled with guilt at having made her pregnant before they were married. Anxiety about whom he might meet in the maternity ward and what he should say to them. Worry about whether this inauspicious start would lay a burden on the child and what, if anything, he could do to make that burden lighter.