A HISTORY fan is trying to find long-lost Swindonian relatives.

Pat Thomas, along with her second cousin Jackie Petty, are trying to trace their connected family tree to find one of their distant relatives who they’ve never met but still believe to be alive and living in the town.

Pat’s grandmother Rachel Edwards and Jackie’s grandfather John Edwards lived in Swindon in the late 1800s and early 1900s and Pat herself lived on Stratton Road in the 1960s.

Pat has since moved to Kent and Jackie lives near London.

After meeting many years ago online through the ancestry.com website, they have managed to track down many of their living relatives, like a DIY version of Who Do You Think You Are?

Now there’s one relative they’re particularly eager to find.

Pat said: “We have been researching this for 20 years. We decided to trace my grandmother’s and grandfather’s lines and have pictures of most of them.

“Dilys Hall was born in 1920 as Dilys Edwards and has lived on South Street – she’s our first cousin once removed and would be 96 now.

“It would be great to know what has happened to Dilys, we would come whizzing down to see her if she’s still around, it would mean so much to us.”

They used the ancestry website, along with birth and death certificates from register offices, to follow the branches of their family tree and have made contact for the first time with cousins and other relatives who live all over the world.

Pat also found out that one lived surprisingly close to home.

“We thought one relative had died during the war after going down with his ship but we learned through the website that he had married and had children who lived no more than 15 miles but they passed away before we could meet them," she said.

“There is no death certificate for Dilys so we believe that she is still alive and it would be lovely to meet her.”

Pat is also hoping to find more photos of earlier generations of the Edwards family to complete her family history collection, particularly Henry Edwards, who was born in 1892 and was known as Harry.

He was born in 1892 in Avebury, the youngest of 11 children of John Edwards and Harriet Ann Lambourn. He passed away in 1970 when a resident of South Street, Swindon.

Pat said: “We have old photos of most of the 11 brothers and sisters and their families and a picture of our great-grandparents but we have none of Harry or his family, so we’d be delighted to receive any information or pictures.”

If you can help Pat and Jackie with their search, email daniel.angelini@newsquest.co.uk