I’ve Found My Grandad!

In January 2022 at the zoom meeting of the Cape Town Family History Society I gave a talk on the 1921 UK Census and how it seemed to give me a new paternal grandfather. You can watch the whole talk at

Basically, the widowed Sarah BOARDMAN born PARISH married Charles PRATT on 21 June 1919. On the 26 Sep 1919, my father, Thomas PRATT was born. All I knew about my grandfather was that he was called Charles, was aged (according to the marriage certificate) 49 years, was living at a hostel for working men, Rawton House, and that his father was a mechanical engineer called Thomas PRATT and was deceased. I also obtained Charles PRATT’s death certificate from 18 May 1924 (less than 5 years after my father was born). His age is given as 54 years which matches the age on the marriage certificate.

Charles PRATT was only part of my family from 1919 and had died by 1924 so it was hard to find definitive data on him. I presumed (wrongly) that he must have come from Birmingham or the Midlands as ‘people, especially poor people, didn’t move about much in those days.’ I found a Charles PRATT from Birmingham whose birth year approximately matched that on Sarah BOARDMAN’s marriage certificate of 1919. However, there was always a nagging doubt that I had the wrong man. It was with eager anticipation that I looked forward to the 1921 Census, as this could tell me whether he was born in Birmingham or not.

The 1921 Census blew my paternal family tree wide open as it told me Charles PRATT was born in Bradford, Yorkshire and not Birmingham. This meant starting my search for my grandfather from scratch. I duly found a Charlie [sic] PRATT born about 1871 whose father was a ‘Steam Engine fitter’ which I suppose could be called an engineer as on the marriage certificate. So was this the right Charles PRATT?

Following this Charles or Charley or Charlie PRATT through, I found he married a Mary Ann WILSON in July 1891. By the 1901 Census they had three children, two girls (Annie PRATT 9y and Elizabeth PRATT 7y) and a son (Harold PRATT 5y). I also found that Charlie PRATT was a drinker and assaulted his wife for which he appeared in court. This assault must have made Mary Anne PRATT born WILSON decide to leave him and make her way to Philadelphia in the USA, taking the three children with her.

I then researched her and the children in the USA and found that she married Frank REGAN. I also found Harold Thomas PRATT growing up, serving in the US forces in WW1 and marrying a Jessie KYNOCH in 1922. They only had one son, Harold James PRATT. He married Maria Madelaine WINTERBERGER in 1948 and had five children including another Harold, HAROLD ALAN PRATT.

I had asked someone in this family that I found if any had had a DNA test done. He didn’t respond so I left it until a few weeks ago when I decided to delete from my family tree the other Charles PRATT from BIRMINGHAM and take a chance and enter Charles PRATT from Bradford as my grandfather. While doing that I went to www.findagrave.com to get Harold Thomas PRATT’s date of death. There I found that in 2018 a Harold PRATT had left digital flowers at his digital grave. When one does this, there is a hyperlink to the person’s email. As 2018 was relatively recent I thought the Harold Pratt who had left flowers would still be alive so I emailed him.

After some to-ing and fro-ing of emails, Harold said that he had done DNA via Ancestry. I had done mine via Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) and thus could not upload it to Ancestry but he could download the raw data and upload it to Gedmatch.com where I had placed my DNA too. This he kindly did.

On Sunday 22 May 2022 I check out my possible matches of DNA and to my joy I found the following

This shows that Harold Pratt (Hap) and I have 233.6 cM of matching DNA, the largest string being 54.5

The two other entries on this screen-shot are from my maternal side. Jennifer KENNERLEY has only 97.2 cM in common with me and her daughter Julia 89.7 cM. They are my Third Cousin (3C) and Third Cousin Once Removed (3C1R) respectively.

I worked out Hal PRATT’s relationship to me using https://dnapainter.com tool of projecting cM similarity.

Self is me (Derek Pratt) and Half 1C1R is Half First Cousin Once Removed. My Parent is my father (Thomas PRATT b. 1919), my Grandparent is Charles PRATT (1871-1924). Then my half Uncle is Harold Thomas PRATT, my Half First Cousin is Harold James. His son is Harold Alan PRATT who is my Half First Cousin once removed. Or to make it more visual

Hal Pratt doesn’t have pictures of my granddad, Charles PRATT and nor do I. He did comment that his great-grandmother Charles’s first wife, Mary Ann PRATT born WILSON later REGAN would get all upset when Charles name was even mentioned.

Hal kindly sent me a picture of his grandfather Harold Thomas PRATT when he joined the US Army in WW1. I’ll put that alongside an early picture of my father. Can you see any likeness between these two half-brothers? Their age gap was twenty-three years.