Seeking Family of Mary Ann Fisher, born Oct. 1895, Basford

[ballydw]

Carol refer to my post no 201 might be worth pursuing the marriage john fisher b 1905 to Barber!!!

[CarolRR]

ballydw, thanks, I did take note of your earlier post.  If I am to get this right, I need to know that the "Alice" and "John" Fisher that are being pursued are the right people ...  so I will order their certificates tonight, stipulating the mother as "Harriet", no father, etc.  Hopefully the certificates will help confirm their identities so that I can proceed feeling certain that I have the right people. 
Out of curiousity, and thinking of Harriet, how did one go from being 'married' to being 'single' in that era?  Could one just 'walk away' from a marriage, change their status and start over? 

[Ruskie]

Carol, I think they could call themselves whatever they wished (married, single, widow etc) - no proof of age or identity or other documentation would have been required. We also don't know Harriett's state of mind or if, or how, any of her actions related to her clasification in the 1911 census, or even it's accuracy.

I hope for more luck for you. 

Has anyone (presumably local) come forward to volunteer to do lookups of police records or workhouse records?

PS. I am not sure how strict the GRO are with spellings (someone else may know), if you are going to order b/cs for Alice and John and want to specify mother as Harriett, might it be wise to spell her name Har(r)iet(t). Surely they would issue no matter how the name is spelled though?  I am probably just being paranoid but I think you used to have to spell the name exactly as it appeared in the index eg, if the name was indexed as Byrd but you knew it should be Bird and ordered it with the spelling as Bird, I thought that they would not issue it . 

[trish58]

Ruskie that is correct, the GRO will only issue the way it is indexed, eg if it is indexed as Smith & you know it is Smyth and order Smyth the won't send it.

Trish

[Ruskie]

Ruskie that is correct, the GRO will only issue the way it is indexed, eg if it is indexed as Smith & you know it is Smyth and order Smyth the won't send it.

Trish

That's spooky Trish, when I wrote my message, I gave the example of Smith/Smyth and changed it to Bird/Byrd at the last minute. 

So would that policy about spelling needing to be exactly how it appears on the GRO index also apply if Carol specifies that the mother must be Harriett, but her name is spelled Harriet?

I just wondered as the mother's name isn't actually on the index, (just on the certificate) .... surely common sense would dictate that Harriet/Harriett/Hariett etc would just be variations of the same name and they would go ahead and issue the certificate?

[snowyw]

I think the index only has surnames- which need to be correct.  Putting the mother's (or father's) christian names is only a checking device, so one would hope that they would not be so picky!

[cocksie]

Am still mulling over how you would go "forward" (as opposed to going backwards and sideways with the Fisher, Orme, Caladine families) ...
So to put in your notebook for going backwards:
Ilkeston marriage registers (there are two) -
http://ukga.org/Registers/derbyshire.html
Interesting how few Fishers were marrying at Ilkestom, ie one or two per generation......

And I was looking at the fisher info you got from IFHS (going backwards) .... Careful with your Thomas (george's father) being illegitimate son of an Esther Fisher.  I think Esther's son died 12 days after birth.  There is a clue for Thomas' origins in his later census information - where he lists his place of birth (think it was in 1871 census) as Cossall, Nottinghamshire.  There is certainly a likely Thomas born in the right timeframe at Cossall to a Joseph and Martha Fisher (nee, wait for it - Caladine). Joseph and Martha married at Ilkeston in 1788, had one child there and them appear to have gone to Cossall.   Anyway - food for thought and absolutely no help in the search forwards.

Cocksie
Edit to add.  Cossall is about a mile away from Ilkeston, across the river - according to mr geggle maps

[cocksie]

Another potentially interesting website for going backwards.  I haven't explored it fully
http://eastmidlandsgenealogy.com/site-coverage/4533086536

[CarolRR]

Good morning and thanks to all for your thoughts and suggestions.  Prior to reading your posts, I did order the certificates following the instructions received from the DHS - fingers crossed that this works.  I ordered Harriet's birth cert in addition to Alice's and John's. 
Cocksie, thanks for the Fisher info and Ilkeston link!  So if Joseph Fisher married a Caladine and Joseph's son, Thomas, also married a Caladine, then there is a good possibility that this couple were related, possibly first cousins?  If so, that might explain some of the 'issues'?  Thomas and Mary named a son 'Joseph' as well as a daughter 'Martha' so this does fit together.  As far as Fisher marriages go, Thomas and Mary only had the one daughter (Martha) and six (known) sons - did marriages normally take place at the bride's parish?