Annette Setterfield of Sheffield says: I am looking for info about Sylvia Ada Tarsey who had a child - Audrey Joan - on 13/02/34 at 42 Sutton Road, St Albans. Are there any descendants, who they are and where do they live.

For reasons connected with the Data Protection Act and privacy I do not give answers which give information about living people unless I know they have no objection to the information being passed on. However I can provide some background information on the surname.

The 1949 Kelly's Street Directory for St Albans does not list anyone called Tarsey in St Albans and 42 Sutton Road was occupied by a Robert Griffiths.

The 1933 Kelly's Directory for Hertfordshire does not list any "Private Resident" (Upper class people only) with the name Tarsey in Hertfordshire or any business in St Albans. This information comes for the archiveCDbooks compendium, which also contains nine directories including those for 1929 and 1937, which you might like to consult yourself. The St Albans Central Library (contact details via the Hertfordshire County Council Web Site) had a set of street directories for this period which are much more detailed and should list the head of household at 42 Sutton Road.

The 1901 census shows there were only 50 people called Tarsey. Quite a few lived in Hertfordshire - including several at St Albans. The 1881 census lists 10 Tarsey in Hertfordshire - all in Berkhamsted. As both these censuses are now available online you can look up details yourself.

The British Vital Records Index (2nd Edition) lists a number of Tarsey baptisms in Hertfordshire - including some in the parish of St Peter's. St Albans, up to 1899 (which is when the indexing of that parish stops). I did not check the marriages on these CDs and have not checked the IGI at Familysearch or FreeBMD at Rootsweb, as you can easily do that for yourself. However these are unlikely to help if, as seems likely, Sylvia Ada Tarsey was born after about 1900.

The only reference in my St Albans Press files (which are little more than a small sample) shows that Edwin Dodd married Mary Ann Tarsey at the Congregational Church, Berkhamsted on 24th December 1882, the minister being the Rev. J. Menzies. The paper in which this appeared was the Hertfordshire Advertiser.

Form the above it is clear that the surname Tarsey is rare - but about 100 years ago there were people with that name in the Berkhamsted and St Albans areas of Hertfordshire, possibly spilling over into Bedfordshire. Your first bet would therefore seem to be to contact all the people called Tarsey listed in the phone directory. You might well find it useful to check the registers of St Peter's, St Albans. You may be able to view a microfilm at your nearest LDS Family History Centre (address on the familysearch website. If not HALS will be able to help. In addition the name is so rare that a wide search of the GRO Birth, Marriage and Death registers would be appropriate and the LDS Family History Centre may be able to help, assuming you are not planning a visit to the Family Resource Centre. If you are visiting London a search for any wills for Tarsey in the 20th century should take no more than a day and could help you to follow the family forward in time (assuming they were sufficiently well off to leave wills.

If you can add to the information given above tell me.