Information on a very obscure driver!

[AllonFS]

This is a real shot in the dark as you will see.

I have been told that my paternal grandfather was a racing driver or took part in a few races (no idea what type of racing or where), would have been late 1920s - 1930s. I believe his name was Rex Franklyn-Stokes, but not 100% sure even about that! He left my grandmother when my father was about 18 months old and apart from the description of him as a bit of a 'cad' (no really!), that is all I know about him. If anyone can suggest where I might go looking for motor-racing information about him or could shed some light I would be very interested. (As both my father and grandmother are long gone, that really is all the information I have...)

Cheers guys, you like a challenge don't you!

[zefarelly]

a race driver and a Cad, you couldn't make it up !

good luck, my family has an equally shady past, there must be some period publications that may be able to unearth something? have you tried that avenue ?

[TimD]

Best I can come up with is an FV Stokes who raced an Itala and a Calthorpe at Brooklands in 1914. He doesn't seem to be double-barrelled and he's a bit early, but you never know...

[terence]

How about the Family Tree thing advertised on T.V?

[David McKinney]

Your father's birth certificate would give his father's correct name

[KA]

There are a lot of family history resources on the net, although not all of them are free-of-charge. Might be worth trying your local library though, as many have subscriptions to things like Ancestry.com, which is an online family history database giving access to things like the 1841-1901 Censuses, and indexes to births, marriages and deaths. It's a subscription service, but available free, or for minimal charges in a lot of libraries. I'm not at work this week, or I'd be able to have a look for you.

You should also be able to get good advice on how to track him down, although maybe not so much on finding out about his motor racing activities.

If you can track down when and where he was born, then maybe the local library in that area can help- bigger libraries with local history collections often have an archive of the local paper on microfilm, and if he raced, it might have been reported in the local press..

[Heebeegeetee]

here's a thought:

Pick up a copy of MotorSport magazine, and via that try to contact Bill Boddy.

What that man doesn't know about the period you're looking into could indeed be written on the back of a postage stamp.