Confusing surnames!

[DeComyn]

I have 2 female ancestors, one b 1809, the other 1829. On their marriage certificates they have both given their surnames using both parents names.

eg Susan Whitney used Susan Whitney Greenly on her marriage certificate, the Greenly being her mother's maiden name.

Was this a usual practice? It's very helpful obviously, but a little confusing when up until that point they were known by their father's surname only.

Any ideas?

[Rowdy-Girl]

The only time I've come across this on my own family line is with my great grandmother Eliza Holt Faulkner she took that name  when she was adopted in her early teens by Benjamin Faulkner   and his wife  the Holt being her birth name

when she married she dropped it and became Clarke

Rowdy

[suttontrust]

It's confusing when people adopt or drop names.  I have someone who seems to have been born Mary Ferguson and to have had an illegitimate daughter.  This is speculation because on the 1881 census she is Mary Foster, wife of George, and the daughter is Emma Ferguson Foster.  When Emma gets married she gives that as her name.  But Mum goes to live with daughter and is thereafter Mary Ferguson.  With no trace of Mary ever marrying anyone, we can only speculate on her relationship with George.

[leagen]

The way Susan Whetley Greenly did it is exactly the way the Spanish do it.  You have a first name, your father's last name then your mother's last name.  If you are a woman when u marry you drop your mother's last name and add your husband's but you always keep your father's last name.  It is Very confusing because kids have different last name than father, kids have mother's father's last name w/their own father's last name as a middle name.  I am looking for my ancestors in Puerto Rico and I search by their first names which in their cases are not common ones, if the first name fits then I look at the last names.   Leagen

[DeComyn]

Thanks Leagen, I'd noticed that too, although I didn't know that was what the Spanish did.
Being half Italian I get lots of post addressed to me in the same way, with my maiden name and married name, so it's pretty similar to the Spanish way although I don't know about using them as middle names. I just found it really odd that two of my old English relatives seemed to begin using both names later in life, having started off with only one.  I didn't expect to find people on both my mother's and father's sides using a similar system! Having said that, it's been enormously helpful when I've come to find their parents. I'd just love to know what prompted them to do it.