Mother's maiden name mystery?

[fetlar13]

Please see the attached (hopefully) 1855 birth certificate of my Gt Grandfather John Vorwerg Dobson, later to become John William Dobson (long story!)

His mother's maiden name I read as either Mary Ann Summers or Sumners?  Can anyone else double check please? 

My confusion is caused by the marriage record of Mary Ann and my Gt. Gt. Grandfather John Daniel Stephen Dobson who wed 26/11/1849 in St. Mary Spital Square Church, Tower Hamlets, where Mary Ann names herself as Waller.  I thinks she was the widow of a Richard Thomas Waller (died 1848) but I cannot find a marriage of a Waller and Summers or Sumners only a Waller and Brant?

Confused!

Steve

[miriamkinga]

Looks like Summer to me 

[fetlar13]

Thanks

It looks like that to me as well, but now I can't tie in Mary Ann Summer to Mary Ann Waller on the wedding certificate!  Blimey family tree research, must be mad to do it!!

Cheers

Steve

[miriamkinga]

Ha ha I think we must all be a bit batty 

Does it definitely say Waller? Not just terible handwriting & could be Summers?

[alpinecottage]

Looks like Summer to me too, but this is the GRO copy, copied by hand in 1855 by a clerk, from the original copy held at the local Register Office.  Also Mary Ann, the mother made her mark and so presumably couldn't read or write.   Thus there was plenty of room for errors to creep in.

[jaywit]

Hang on. The 1849 marriage Mary Ann signed her name and said her father was Daniel Brant,

something doesn't add up.

[janan]

It would be worth checking with the local register office for the birth to see it they have Brant rather than Summer.

Jan

[jaywit]

And she signed her name on her first marriage.

Mary Ann Brant m Richard Thomas Walter 9 Feb 1831 St George in the East

[fetlar13]

Jaywit & all

Yep, something doesn't add up at all?  The info I was given a while ago was that John Daniel Stephen Dobson (my Gt.Gt. Grandfather) married a Mary Ann Waller who names her father as Daniel Brant. The reason appeared to be (and feel free to correct it please!!!) that Mary Ann was a widow of a Richard Thomas Waller.  I cannot find a Waller - Brant marriage?  This Summer name now has me confused, but not for the first time with this branch!!

The only "facts" that ring true are John D S Dobson was a Gasfitter, as noted oh John Vorwerg Dobson birth certificate.  Later John D S Dobson and family move from London to Liverpool, where John D S dies in 1863, assumed to have been some kind of work related accident as his now apparently twice widowed wife Mary Ann was in receipt of a pension from the Gas Company. 

John V Dobson appears on the 1871 (aged16) census living with Mary Ann and two elder sisters in Liverpool.  John Vorwerg Dobson disappears and a John William Dobson appears.  John William Dobson marries Ellen Waters in 1878 and names John Dobson (Gasfitter) as his father.  John Vorwerg appaers to have become John William around the time of the Franco-Prussian war, when there was a lot of anti-Germanic feelings growing, so he Anglicised his name.

It's a puzzle alright!

Cheers

Steve Dobson