Parish records fro Shoreditch area

[Kelly80]

Who registered Richards birth, Sarah or Richard


They certainly lost a lot of children in infancy. 

In the box for 'Signature, description and residence of informant' it says  X the mark of Sarah Doubtfire Mother 4 Teale Street Bethnal Green.

Yes, they lost a lot of children.  Also, their son Richard who married Harriet Hemmingway lost a lot of children.  They had 15 kids (one I can't seem to find), and only 4 of those children out lived their father, most of them died before the age of 7 years.  Terribly sad, but they were in a very poor and deprived area of London. 

[Kelly80]

So, here is an interesting turn of events.  I received Mary Ann Doubtfire's birth certificate.

I was expecting it to say her mother was Sarah Doubtfire formally Earl, as her birth in 1857 was nine years before the record I found Richard Doubtfire and Sarah Tyler's marriage in 1866.

However, Mary's birth certificate says she was born 20th October 1857 at 15 Mead Street to Richard Doubtfire and Sarah Doubtfire formally Tyler!

So now where do I go?  This Mary isn't the full sister of my ancestor Richard Doubtfire b.1849.
I now have no lead on his family as the one I was convinced was his turns out not to be, as far as I can tell.
It's the wrong Sarah.

(Wanders off to head butt a wall)

[rosie99]

It is quite possible that the name of Earl was written down wrongly by the registrar on Richards certificate.  As Sarah could not write her name she probably could not check what had been written down.

There is also a chance that the name was written down wrongly on the copy sent to the GRO