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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Milliepede on Sunday 17 July 16 16:33 BST (UK)
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Wondering how common it was that someone got the wrong first name for their father - or it was written down wrongly on the register.
I don't mean illegitimate children who made up a father, people who did have fathers, deceased at the time or not, and had previously appeared with them on a census.
Clutching at straws really to find someone who disappears off the radar and have looked at marriages that on the surface seem to fit but then the fathers names are always wrong :(
In this particular case the boys father died when he was about 8.
Any opinions welcome thank you.
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I have one in 1896, father named as Samuel but should have been Simon.
Mother still around but married to another man (was actually never married to Simon though they are recorded as married on the 1881 census and for the births of their 4 children ::) ) No death yet found for the father, though it said deceased on the marriage certificate.
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I have one in 1841 (Thomas instead of Isaac) and another in 1844 (John instead of James). The names are incorrect on the original registers not just GRO certificates, and this was confirmed by other information. Both parties were able to sign their names and probably could read but it was still missed.
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I have one who names his father's cousin as his father, as his father died when he was a toddler and he then lived with this man (possibly his godfather?) and mother
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I've got one, her mother had died when she was a year, her father when she was five. I haven't checked the original register though so it could be a transcription mistake. I eventually found concrete proof (1939 register) that she was who I thought but she did have a relatively unusual surname and her father a slightly more unusual occupation so it seemed 90% certain before proof.
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I have a couple of instances of the wrong father's name being given on marriage certificate:
Frances Trant, daughter of William Trant gives her father's name as John Trant in 1855. There is no John Trant in the family so i have no idea where that name came from.
Fanny Calvert gave no fathers name on her marriage in 1870, despite the fact that her father Edward was alive & well and she appeared with him in censuses both before and after her marriage
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Marmalady do you think it's possible Fanny Calvert's father was known to be someone else? It seems odd otherwise.
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Your examples are encouraging thank you. I will have to double check the likely looking marriages but how to prove it is the person I want with that crucial bit of information being wrong?
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Did the father/brothers/sisters/uncles etc leave a will they might be named in? More likely to be successful if it's a woman.
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I haven't found any wills for anyone. This is going back to the mid 1800's by the way. All the other siblings that married named the right father.
I don't even know if he did marry but it's given me hope he may have done and the wrong name was put down, just how to prove it.
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If his father died when he was very young, it could be possible that he never heard him referred to by his name - just "your father"? Or it could be a simple mistake by the vicar when writing it up.
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we have to remember that way back a lot of people were illiterate and so didn't know for sure what was written down.............I have one that is down as Daniel instead of Samuel, and on hubbies side one line used whatever name they felt like for surname and sometimes forename made life quite interesting fortunately always something you could say yes that's ours to.
Mind I have one who could read and write perfectly well put fathers name as Frederick instead of William, supposedly she had fallen out with him!!
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Just remembered I have one (though it's baptism rather than marriage) 'either Thomas Williams or William Thomas'
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My ancestor was William Thomas Coombs, his father was George. William put Matthew George Coombs on his wedding cert. That was his older brothers name. In all the refs to their father George, I have not come across him having Matthew as a first name. I have his baptism, burial. George died when William was 3. George was a coachman and his son Matthew was a printer. William put "coachman" for father.
William's dad died when he was 3 so I think he thought he father was the same full name as his older brother, unaware their dad was just George.
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I've had it before where details between the bride and groom have been mixed up- for example, the bride's father had the same occupation as the groom's father when I know he didn't, or one where he had the same forename but we are convinced we have the right family as all other details match. In older PR records, I've seen transcriptions mess up between lines, giving the wrong mother to a christening etc.
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My great grandfather (born 1857) had two younger brothers. Their father died in 1862. All three brothers married in the 1870's. They gave three different fathers' names, all wrong.
It took me a long time to piece the family together. I'm reasonably sure that it's correct now because I have some DNA matches on that line.
Their mother lived until 1900, and seems to have maintained contact with at least two of the brothers; I don't know why she didn't tell them their father's name.
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Yes, you have to just apply logic and realise the info given can be inaccurate, if I was not a genealogist I probably would have trouble remembering my great grandparents names. Easy to get mixed up. And to swap names around, no end of confusion. Matthew George or George Matthew.
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Yes, you definitely have to be flexible and look at all options
My Grandfather was the product of my Gt Grannies affair with a married man. She registered his name with the married man's wife's name and maiden surname, I ignored it many times in the indexes before I thought 'it has to be him' and bought it.
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Marmalady do you think it's possible Fanny Calvert's father was known to be someone else? It seems odd otherwise.
Don't think so
At her baptism her parents were named as Edward & Mary
Ohhh
Have just rechecked dates etc
Her father died a year before her marriage -- so presumably name was blank as she "didnt have a father"
She was with an uncle in a later census, not her father as I remembered earlier
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Fair enough, I also have a child baptised with both parents names and a birth certificate with the father named, the fathers name was left blank on the marriage register. He then went by his mothers surname The parents were never married (mother presented as married when registering the births) but he was one of a least three children to the pair. I haven't (and likely never will) establish whether his named father was his father but i think he must be either illegitimate or angry at the treatment his mother received (the father married someone else). He would have known about his 'father' as his sister lived with both parents in the censuses and there is evidence showing they were a close knit family. To me it's a big red flag if someone doesn't name a father when they should know who they were.
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I have one in 1896 ,her natural father died when she was just 2,and she was brought up by a step father. On her marriage cert she gives the name John (step dad) as her father,but of course knows that her natural dad's surname is the same as hers,also gives the correct job for him.
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More than once in my lot, a child's father died and the mother remarried.
When the child eventually married (under their birth surname), they gave the stepfather's first name and occupation, and the clergyman has filled in the father's surname to match the person getting married.
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Some branches of my family followed naming patterns rigidly which led to lots of people with exactly the same name (I suspect they did it to confuse me). As far as I can tel this led people to being known by nicknames which were cited on certificates occasionally. I suspect the children didn't know for example that Jimmy was David James.
My grt grt grandfather gave the wrong father on his birth certificate. I know you said not referring to illegitimate children and he was illegitimate. However in his case I don't know if he knew. The man he cited as his father was his mum's first husband (whose surname he took) who died 19months before he was born. I wonder if he knew that he wasn't his father or had just been told he had died before his birth. I guess I'll never know. On the other hand his middle name, surname of his reputed father was passed on down the family as a middle name.
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I have a GG grandfather who married three times.
On the certificates/parish register for the first two marriages his father's name is John.
The third marriage names his father as William.
After much research into a likely looking John and his large family ::) - all the evidence points to William being correct.
Not sure what to make of it.
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I have a 1964 marriage record with the step-father's name on the record, probably because he was in attendance at the wedding.
Blue
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I have a relative called Josiah, but when two of his children marry he is referred to as Joseph.
Another relative has a very wrong father's name on his marriage certificate, but with a bit of digging, I realised it had been mixed up with his wife's father's name. Their occupations were the wrong way round, too.
We should bear in mind that the information recorded on the certificate is only as accurate as the person supplying it. Someone might not know their father's real first name, maybe if both parents had died some years previously, or if the father was commonly known by their middle name.
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And to swap names around, no end of confusion. Matthew George or George Matthew.
I had problems finding my grandfather's war records until I realised that he always reversed his names.
My gg grandfather's marriage cert in 1855 gives his father's names as the same as his own, Charles Henry Lintern. I went on a total false line finding a supposedly matching Lintern baptism in Somerset. Luckily I followed the Somerset Charles jnr forward and found that he was a totally different person. My Charles variously gives is place of birth as London and Hannover so I am at a dead end.
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My gg grandfather's marriage cert in 1855 gives his father's names as the same as his own, Charles Henry Lintern. I went on a total false line finding a supposedly matching Lintern baptism in Somerset. Luckily I followed the Somerset Charles jnr forward and found that he was a totally different person. My Charles variously gives is place of birth as London and Hannover so I am at a dead end.
Could he mean the Hanover Square area of London?
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Could he mean the Hanover Square area of London?[/quote]
Well one census just gives place of birth as "Germany" and my mother's aunt told her that he was German so I assume the city was meant.
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Peter
Charles Lintern: 1861 b. Hanover; 1871, b. Germany; 1881 b. London; 1891 b. Hanover, with various occupations, but wife and children match up.
The London one looks wrong, and I'd be pretty certain he was born in the State of Hanover, now Niedersachsen.
FamilySearch, Ancestry (World) may help with finding his birth, but to search records actually in Germany it's usually necessary to have the place of both.
AGFHS http://www.agfhs.org/site/index.php may be useful.
Lintern is not a German name, but LINTNER is. Easily written incorrectly on records when he entered the country.
I don't think you are at a dead end yet ;D
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Thanks for that link, I will follow it up in detail when I have time.
The 1881 census matches the statement on his marriage cert. I had thought that my great aunt's statement was pure fancy until I found the other censuses.