Peter Dawson Harris and Jessie lilian harris

[Helen Stuchbery]

Hi am at a brick wall with tracing my fathers life he was born in St Asaphs on 4/10/32 to Jessie Lilian Harris, I have a copy of his birth certificate and know she was living at Gresham House in Rhyl at time of his birth, now 3 Conwy Street, there is no father on the birth certificate and I don’t know how to verify dob etc on his mother as I know nothing of her apart from here say that she ran a boarding house. I have looked for a link using Dawson, again nothing. Jessie had a daughter in 1923 in St Asaphs. I think they were possibly both out of wedlock.
He joined the raf as a boy entrant in 1947. I was told he was at a redcoats school but cannot find how to erase arch that. He married my mother in Scotland in 1955 had four children then another three with his second wife.
Any ideas appreciated. He died in 2000

[Megan Roberts]

In order to find Jesse's date of birth you need to find her on the 1939 Register. This is available on all the big genealogy sites like Ancestry and Find my past.

This is like a census and was taken just before the outbreak of WW2, and used for issuing ration cards, ID cards and after the war formed the basis of the National Health Service records.

You may come across "closed" records, and those relate to anyone who is less than 100 years old and who the data base does not recognise as having died. For instance my mum born in 1924 died in 1987, and to this day her record is closed, but my uncle who was born in 1936 and died in 1996 his record is open.

Redcoats is a term that was/is used to describe those that worked at a chain of holiday camps called Butlins. See this page from Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlins_Redcoats

[christanel]

Welcome to the British-Genealogy forums
As Megan says looking for your father and his sister on the 1939 index would be the way to go however I have had a quick look and couldn't find anything definitive which, whilst doing a few domestics led me to the question - did your father and his half sister stay with their mother and keep the Harris surname or where they adopted or perhaps took a step father's name.
The birth of a J M Harris in the St Asaph's registration district Dec 1/4 1923 mother's maiden name Harris. I then looked in the 1939 index but the only one I can see at the moment has a birth date in April. So we need to know if they kept the Harris surname.
Christina

[suemalings]

As your grandmother lived in Rhyl, your father was probably born here not St. Asaph (this is the registration district for Rhyl - my father was born there, along with all his sisters) unless, of course, it gives the address on his birth cert as St Asaph.

Is the entry for JM Harris your aunty? Where did the name Dawson come from? Do you think it is connected to your tree?

[suemalings]

Jut out of interest, I keep an eye on the Rhyl History Club and I see a question form someone asking about Belgium Refugees in Rhyl. The person is the grand daughter of Jesse Lillian Harris who lived at the address - Gresham House, 59 Conwy Street. She was advised to look at https:/refugeesinrhyl.wordpress.com/

There is also another query about Gresham House but it looks like it has been moved to the archives.