aliases

[Muir]

whilst doing a family search a relative came up as having an alias, mclen alias harker, as far as we can tell there were no harker relatives. as you can imagine they proved hard to find this was in durham around 1870 ish

so in what circumstances would an alias be used and accepted in official records?

any thoughts or similar experiences?

[CaroleW]

whilst doing a family search a relative came up as having an alias, mclen alias harker

Where was this info obtained from - which website etc

[stanmapstone]

If someone has adopted, or is commonly known by a surname other than their true surname, then when filling in documents they could put Mclen alias Harker, i.e. Mclen otherwise known as Harker.
This sometimes appears in Column 2 on a marriage certificate, although the official form would be "Mclen otherwise Harker"
Stan

[Muir]

I cant remember the source of hand as my sister found the record, i think it might have been a census.

we don't think it was an adoption as we have sourced parents. he went by the name of mclen on several census the used harker then mclen again.

i thought maybe it could be something to do with prison? we have no idea if he was ever in trouble but if he was maybe he trying to hide it to get work again