RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: DyeReynolds_1 on Thursday 25 September 25 03:10 BST (UK)
-
I'm wondering if anybody might know why someone might change their name on an electoral register while maintaining their real birth name on other records such as census records and marriage records? My 2x great grandmother Jane Dyer, whose real surname changed from Dye to Dyer after 1911, listed her name as the exact same name as her daughter whose name was Mary Elizabeth Dyer, on the London electoral registers of the 1910s up until the 1930s when she disappears from records. Some years there would be Sr. and Jr listed beside her and her daughters name, while on other years her daughter would switch back and forth from the name 'Polly.' I'm curious as to why they might've made these name changes only on the Electoral Register despite them both using their real names on the 1921 Census, and on Mary's marriage certificate?
-
Polly is often a nickname for Mary, but the other name changes are baffling. Maybe the change from Dye to Dyer was because she thought it sounded better.
-
If I have the right pair in St Pancras, daughter is Mary Ann in 1911.
-
Does Jane have any other children@ if so, do they change their names as well?
-
If I have the right pair in St Pancras, daughter is Mary Ann in 1911.
Yes they lived on Hethersett Street in 1911, mother Jane Dye was born in Totnes Devon.
-
Does Jane have any other children@ if so, do they change their names as well?
Her only other living child is my great grandfather, William Dye and he never changed his name throughout his life. He was estranged from them and told my family he was 'orphaned' when he wasn't so he had little to no contact with his mother or sister throughout his teenage and adult life.
-
Polly is often a nickname for Mary, but the other name changes are baffling. Maybe the change from Dye to Dyer was because she thought it sounded better.
Yes that's what I thought to, the surname change started around the late 1910s/early 1920s when her daughter Mary got older and started signing the census records so I assume she would've been the reason for that. I can't find a reason why her mother would just take her daughters full name only on the London electoral registers, I feel as if there must have been some sort of benefit. What I do know is that she had a history throughout her life, including in her younger years of changing her surname and her maiden name on census records and the birth records of her children.