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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: carolosunny on Tuesday 11 October 11 10:31 BST (UK)
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This is very complicated and I'm not using real names as when you have read the post you might understand ???
During my research on AB I found that he married CD. On the marriage certificate it said AB was a widower and CD was a spinster.to discover more I got the death certificate of CD and found the informant of her death was EF and was CD's Daughter. EF had the same name as CD's maiden name, so I presumed that EF had been born out of wedlock. Through many different channels of research sites and newspaper adverts I have discovered that CD had actually been married to GH and had children but left GH and the children. CD then went onto live with IJ but never married IJ however had children, EF was 1 of the children. CD took the surname of IJ without marriage. When IJ died CD then married AB.
Confused yet????? lol
My questions are :
Was it easy in the 1930's to change a surname?
Was it legal to say spinster on a marriage certificate or does that mean divorcee aswel?
Can someone get a divorce after 30 years without the other partner signing papers?
If anybody understands my post then please get in touch XXXXX
Thanks :)
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All you have to do to change your surname, is to use the name you want to be known by. For example, one set of my great grandparents never married, but my great grandmother used my great-grandfather's surname, registered their children's births as though she was married, and her death was registered in that name. She didn't have to do anything except call herself Mrs --- . Nobody knew that they weren't married.
Nowadays this is a bit more complicated than it used to be: our lives are bound up with form-filling and paperwork, but it is, and always has been perfectly legal to use a different name from the one you were born with, so long as it is not in order to commit fraud.
Spinster is a term which applies only to a woman who is not, and has never been married. A person who is widowed or divorced is supposed to declare that at the time of marrying. However you don't have to produce any proof of your condition, so what you tell the registrar is what will be written.
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thank you for that :D it dosn't make our research easy does it? also what made me believe CD hadn't been married was that on the marriage cerificate the Fathers Surname was the same as CD's AND IJ !!! I think now that that information was wrong too ::)