Keith, Thanks for all that information about your family. Sue is right about the way to proceed. The reference for your grandfather’s birth is
Joughin, John Charles V 9/1908 West Derby 8b 236.

In case you are unfamiliar with the notation, that means that his birth was registered in the September (containing the months July, August and September) 1908 quarter in the West Derby (part of Liverpool) Registration District, volume 8b, page 236.

You might want to wait for the certificate to arrive, or you might want to chance an application for a marriage certificate for the parents. The only Charles Joughin that fits your details is
Joughin, Charles 3/1908 West Derby 8b 328.

That is close on the birth. If you are being cautious, wait for the birth certificate to come through and that will tell you the mother’s name. You could then look her up in the same volume of the index, and see if her name gives the same reference. You might be derailed at that point if she was a widow when she married Charles Joughin. Steer clear of Charles John Joughin, m 12/1906 also in West Derby. He was the Titanic baker, and married Louisa Woodward, having only one child, Agnes, so far as is known. Besides, he has the wrong date of death and the wrong father’s name, and I think you would know if he was your ancestor.

Your death dates are more problematical.

There was a Charles Joughin who died in 1919:
Joughin, Charles [age] 38 9/1919 Birkenhead 8a 426

Suicide would explain the early death.

He would have been 26 when he married and JCVJ was born, a suitable age. However, there is no corresponding birth in England and Wales registered in about 1881 in your part of the country (there is a Charles registered in Woolwich in 1881). There was a Charles Joughin born at 4 St. Barnabas Square, Douglas 1881 July 25, son of Charles Joughin, tailor, and Mary Jane Gawne. The IGI dates his baptism 1880 Sept 9 at Braddan. There must be a mistake somewhere here. However, this Charles is probably the subject of a 1953 grant of letters of administration:
Joughin or Macjordan, Charles, or Jordan, Maxwell Clarkson of 1 College Drive, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham 20, d 1949 Feb. 3rd. Admon Birmingham Sept 7th to May Joughin, spinster.

Now Charles the son of Charles J and Mary Jane had a sister May, and she would not take the grant if the deceased left descendants. I did not find a death listed under Joughin in 1949, so it probably appears under the name Jordan or Macjordan.

1949 was the date you gave for your great-great-grandfather’s death. There was a death that year in Liverpool South of a Charles H Joughin, aged 78, too young to be the father of a boy born about 1881. This is Charles Henry Joughin, of a Peel family. Again, letters of administration were granted to a brother, so he would not be your ancestor.

What a tangle! Best to stick to Sue’s method and start with that 1907 birth certificate, and possibly the 1907 marriage cert. And certainly that 1919 death certificate, to corroborate your bit of oral history. Can you do that from where you are? I believe the records themselves are kept somewhere along the Fylde Coast, not too far from you, but I’m not sure that they have search facilities. As a near-Londoner I rely on going up to the Family Records Centre in London.

How firm are those details of your great- and great-great-grandparents? Can you remember where they came from? Any places associated? Any monumental inscriptions?

Let us know how you get on.