Mistakes on a Marriage Certificate?

[mike175]

I just got the Marriage Certificate for my 2xgt/grandfather Thomas Foss, which shows his father's profession clearly as "Mariner".

Thomas is one of my most carefully researched and cross-referenced ancestors, and I'm as certain as I can be that I have the correct family, but on the census his father was equally clearly an Ag Lab, as was his grandfather . . . so my question is . . . how often are such obvious mistakes made on a marriage certificate?

I have found one other case where a bricklayer was described as a baker . . . which could be down to bad handwriting . . . but reading "ag lab" as "mariner" seems rather less likely . . . 

Anyone else found similar errors

[clematised]

I can only tell you of my own personal experience as when I married within the last twenty years for the second time I thought the registrar knew my maiden name and when he asked me my fathers name I only gave his first and second names and not his surname as I wrongly assumed he knew that my fathers surname was my maiden name
My father was welsh descent and so his two first names were also surnames and on my marriage cert he is down with his middle name as his surname and when I later approached the registrar to tell him of the mistake he advised me to leave it well alone so this can be confusing for future generations

I have put a sticker on the back of the original to make it clear but anyone looking for the information without the cert in future years will have great difficulty.

The moral here is the person who supplied the original details may have mistakenly given the wrong information for the record for whatever reason.

Edna

[Dave Francis]

Hi there

I wouldn't discount the possibility that the marriage certificate is actually correct!  One of my ancestors was always recorded as an ag lab in the Census returns, but on his marriage he described himself as a sailor.  This is entirely plausible because several members of his family are known to have worked on the local fishing boats at certain times of year. Perhaps it's just a question of seasonal employment?

Dave

PS: I expect you'll tell me now that Thomas's father lived 150 miles inland 

[mike175]

Hi Dave,

Actually he lived right on the south coast at Beaulieu, so it is certainly possible, although 3 consecutive censuses list him as Ag Lab, and he was never absent at sea on census night.

Certainly something new to think about though . . . 

Edna, you may be right . . . could it be that he was ashamed of his father's lowly status perhaps, and changed his occupation?

Thomas himself was a shipwright, possibly apprenticed to his maternal uncle in the early days, and seems to have been quite "upwardly mobile"   

Mike.

[maiseyday]

Hi all,

Can you tell me what    Ag Lab   is.   Is it    'argriculture labourer'

Linda.

[rbangorreg]

Have a look at the following site from "GenDocs"
http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:z_iEa5bgeJsJ:homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/abbrcen.html+ag+lab+in+the+navy&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=au

  It may help you.
      Reg.

[Sylviaann]

One of mine was a mariner when he married and on his children's birth and marriage certs but on the census he was a sugar boiler.  His name was also spelt incorrectly Hillmand instead of Hillman and his place of birth does not exist.  After his first wife's death things went back to normal so I concluded his wife had given the information and had a speech impediment.  She also thought that mariner was better than sugar boiler.

Sylviaann

[seahall]

Hi All

Edna if you feel strongly enough about it you can write to the
Register General Office and ask for a correction to the certificate.

I did it on one of my son's and my sister had her father's name put on
her marriage certfiicate as it was not put on at the time years later.

All we had to do was show our original certificates to prove the errors.

Sandy

[oldtimer]

On a death certificate of one of my ancestors he is described as an organ maker!

He was actually an auger maker - something very different!!!