Hello Mark

Searching for the Birth of Thomas William Docherty born 10 May 1952

We would be delighted to produce a  family tree gift for your dad.

Here is where we are at. We have had difficulties obtaining your dad's details with the information you have provided. It is essential that we get confirmation of your dad's birth within the next week/ ten days so that we can get his family tree completed before 10 May.

We know that your dad was Thomas William Docherty born 10 May 1952 and that you don't know his father's name. Does Charles ring a bell? You believe that your dad's mother was called Mavis. We have found one possible birth for a Thomas W Docherty born to a Docherty and Mavis but that leads us to a birth in the first quarter of 1952 not the second quarter as would be expected. This birth record was not in Nottinghamshire but an adjacent county, and some distance from Mansfield. If there was some disconnect between your dad in infancy with his father such as parental separation or death, this can lead to various unexpected outcomes. We have had many cases over the years where an original birth record has been misinterpreted for whatever reason but it is our job to cut through discrepancies and do what we can for you.

We also appreciate that your dad could have been born in Scotland.  There is one possible entry near Glasgow for a Thomas William Docherty in 1952 but the indexes do not reveal the birth quarter or the mother's maiden name as they do in  England. The  other problem is that Scottish certificates take 15 working days to be sent out whereas in England we can get them prioritised to arrive within a few days.

If the English certificate is wrong and the Scottish one can't be obtained any faster we would have to get someone to visit the Registry and obtain it there. We would try to include that in the cost below but will let you know if we get to that stage.

The Tree

This is a beautifully presented report comprising hundreds of pages, records, censuses, locations, maps, relationships etc plus various separate family trees. These are all online but saved as PDFs so they can be printed. A four surname tree would normally be provided within two months and we have a queue of clients waiting two months for their cases to start at the moment. As advised, however, we can prioritise your case and express the other certificates etc but will have to charge for doing so. We are therefore looking in the region of £1,500 for two surname lines or £2,500 for all your dad's grandparent lines to be completed in a few weeks as long as we resolve his identity. A quotation will be sent separately for this once we know where he was born and can check what names we are searching for as common names are harder to find than rare ones.

'Brick Wall' Case

We will treat this as urgently as possible so if you want to proceed please accept the quote and make payment on the invoice which will then appear (all buttons are at the top of the screen).

This quote is based on factors such as time, priority, speed and expertise, not on a contingency, no-win-no-fee arrangement. Please therefore only proceed on this basis. We will do our best to help but if there is any more information you can glean that would improve our chances we should be able to reduce the second invoice commensurately with any time/expense saved. The same applies to the Scottish certificate. If the English one is the correct one we will refund the amount for the Scottish one if it has not been ordered in the meantime.

Sorry if this is complicated but it is a difficult case ('Brick Wall'). We have discounted that element by 45% in the circumstances as there will be no need for a report etc on this initial phase.

I hope this is acceptable but please let me know if you have any queries.

Best wishes

Amy