Distinctive names certainly helped me with my Hardwick lines.
My grandfather was Charles Whitney Hardwick, my uncle Peter John Whitney Hardwick; my great grandfather Frank Whitney Hardwick. Frank's mother Was Emma Hardwick nee Wiles ... but HER mother's maiden name was Whitney.
However, it was my great grandmother Hardwick (Frank's wife) that distinctive names REALLY helped to crack.
I had the marriage certificate ... Frank Whitney Hardwick married Myrah Cass Stephenson in Trumpington (just outside Cambridge) in 1905. Families from Trumpington and Newmarket. But could I find a birth for Myrah (or Myra) Cass Stephenson? Or Myrah (or Myra) C Stephenson? Or just plain Myrah (or Myra) Stephenson?
Not a chance.
What about a Stephenson child who was not names until after registration?
Nope, still nothing.
Eventually, in despair, I searched for "Myrah Cass" with no family name given ... and BINGO! Out it popped. Only one in the ENTIRE database ... Myrah Cass S Holcombe ... born in the right year, but in South East London.
I had a small wager with myself that the S was for Stephenson ... and when the birth certificate came ... I was right.
The story soon fell into place. Myrah's mother Emily Holcombe was the daughter of an ex-soldier who worked on the railways and then had a beer house in the East End of London. He died at the age of 39. Emily's mother tried to run the beer house for a little while, then gave it up and moved back to her home village of Exning, just outside Newmarket. She went into service, and Emily and her sister were sent to live with their grandparents - Ambrose and Sarah Frost at the White Swan in Exning, in Emily's case, and Anthony and Martha Holcombe in Chippenham (another village just outside Newmarket) in her sister's case.
Ambrose and Sarah Frost died, and Emily then went to live with her Holcombe grandparents and her sister. Martha Holcombe died, but Anthony soldiered on (until he was 98 - which isn't a bad age to reach in the 19th century!).
Emily worked in a bar ... and then she went to South East London where she worked in another bar, and had a daughter who was named Myrah Cass Stephenson Holcombe. Do father named on the birth certificate. But soon after, she married Charles James Christopher Stephenson, the son of a Newmarket baker, in Hendon. (I've still not quite figured out what the Hendon connection is ... ) I have little doubt that Charles Stephenson was in fact Myrah's father.
They then returned to Newmarket, where they went into business as publicans and bakers, and quietly dropped Myrah's original surname Holcombe. And - here's the really cunning thing - if anybody questioned Myrah's legitimacy they could, if necessary, swear on oath that she had ALWAYS been named Myrah Cass Stephenson. (That is the truth and nothing but the truth ... but not, evidently, the whole truth ... )
My mother was more than a little stunned to learn that her grandmother had been illegitimate ... but there's no doubt whatever ... and I have to say, it is a rather nice human-interest story with a happy ending.
