Talk:George Locke

I have seen too much dubious or outright erroneous data on ISFDB to trust their birthdate fully, unless they somehow link a primary source. Which they apparently don't; SFE also says "3 February 1936", but again, they might have copied it from ISFDB. By Occam's razor it seems quite improbable that Bennett would make an error in so important a matter, and not correct it later. It would be ideal to check in other sources, or at least specify what those "some" are: Alas, Locke is not included in Broyles' 1961 Who's Who, and IIRC Bennett's Directory did not include birthdays. I suppose you're out of Ancestry by now?

Similarly, https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/locke_george notes (the obvious fact which we lack so far) that Locke's small press was Ferret Fantasy and makes no mention of the Temple book, which says "Printed for Andrew Crosse at the Sansato Press, Folkestone Wembley Edinburgh". Sansato comes from Temple's work, and Crosse seems also fictional per somewhat vague explanation / quote at https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?39362 But then if this is some peculiar in-joke, that's all the more reason to find a source that would connect Locke to this.

(Finally, it is much better in all regards to hold such discussions on a Talk page than in a summary of a null edit. Have no fear I wouldn't notice… ;-) --JVjr (talk) 08:26, 19 February 2025 (PST)

I am sure about this but it was 25 years ago and it seems oddly hard to track down a confirming reference. The best I can find is https://www.lawrenceperson.com/?tag=first-editions&paged=3 where it's described as 'Sansato Press (AKA Ferret Fantasy)'. I am asking around to see if anybody else knows.--Mark Plummer (talk) 11:02, 19 February 2025 (PST)

I have a second person who confirms that he also remembers it being George and that George sent him his copy. But still nothing concrete. And yes, my ancestry free membership expired.--Mark Plummer (talk) 14:16, 20 February 2025 (PST)

I checked FamilySearch, which is free, and they seem to have at least a reference to his birth record… but without exact date, just the year's quarter: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVQD-FT3S The source is at Findmypast – I got free to the scanned image https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=BMD%2FB%2F1936%2F1%2FAZ%2F000688&parentid=BMD%2FB%2F1936%2F1%2FAZ%2F000688%2F083 but it is indeed quarterly index only (Chelsea, mother's maiden name Spacie, volume 1a, page 472). I am rather lost otherwise, but apparently one has to pay somewhere to get an exact date / record. There is also a George W. Locke marriage record in Westminster in the last quarter of 1969 (to a Winward), but that seems to be all. --JVjr (talk) 10:00, 23 February 2025 (PST)

My experience is that birth records often do only narrow down to quarters. Ironically, you can often get a birth date off the death record. Also, if the person is old enough and George is, from the 1939 census. But sadly I no longer have access to ancestry.co.uk, at least for the time being. --Mark Plummer (talk) 10:10, 23 February 2025 (PST)

Thanks for the tip; https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/61596/?name=George_Locke&birth=1936&birth_x=0-0-0&name_x=si_1 works even without registration… except it shows NO such a person anywhere, let alone in London. Free Findmypast is similar, adding one George Locke without a birth year (as shown in the results) in Newcastle upon Tyne. — Oh well, there are Things Fen Were Not Meant to Know… --JVjr (talk) 12:04, 23 February 2025 (PST)

I can see what I assume is him searching on George Walter Locke born 1936 but without a registration I can't see anything we don't already know. --Mark Plummer (talk) 12:29, 23 February 2025 (PST)