Aristocrats not bothering with birth registrations

[chris_49]

MyHeritage Smart Matches can often be very wild guesses - different names, wrong continent .But the other day I was informed of a relative matched with someone I had heard of - and not a nice person, either.

Edwin George Fox 1892 married my relative Emma Stanley in 1915 - they had no children, he died in 1956 and she remarried. Emma was Carol02's great aunt, but she won't remember Edwin. Yet MyHeritage is suggesting he might be the same person as George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, landowner and fascist sympathiser, interned in 1940. Scary!

It's true that Wikipedia says that he was born London 1890 but oddly registered in Chesterfield as plain George Henry L Fox, quoting FreeBMD as source. However we now have the GRO births, which tell us that this was George Henry Levi Fox, mother's maiden name Young, whereas Pitt-Rivers' mother was a Thynne.

I looked up Pitt-Rivers on FreeBMD and although there are plenty of marriages and deaths, there are no births at all before the C20th, the first ones George's sons. Did the aristocracy deign to believe they were above the law in regard to registrations? i tried him as Rivers, no luck).

Anyway, never trust a MyH smart match. Chris

[arthurk]

It's true that Wikipedia says that he was born London 1890 but oddly registered in Chesterfield as plain George Henry L Fox, quoting FreeBMD as source. However we now have the GRO births, which tell us that this was George Henry Levi Fox, mother's maiden name Young, whereas Pitt-Rivers' mother was a Thynne.

I looked up Pitt-Rivers on FreeBMD and although there are plenty of marriages and deaths, there are no births at all before the C20th, the first ones George's sons. Did the aristocracy deign to believe they were above the law in regard to registrations? i tried him as Rivers, no luck).

For some reason he's listed as George Henry Fox-Pitt, both at FreeBMD and the GRO site.

I also tried to find him at The Peerage website - initially without success, but I found some links in the section for his mother Alice Ruth Hermione Thynne - https://thepeerage.com/p1639.htm#i16385. (I didn't follow them.) This suggests that her surname became Fox-Pitt-Rivers at her marriage, and that her husband was using Lane as a middle forename. What became of Rivers at George Henry's birth I don't know, unless it's that the registration system can't cope with more than double-barrelled surnames.

Anyway, never trust a MyH smart match. Chris

Or Wikipedia, it would seem.

Going back to your question about whether the aristocracy registered births etc, I would think it's highly unlikely that they wouldn't. Their whole way of life is tied up with notions of heredity, and since 1837 getting a formal birth registration is part and parcel of proving who's who. What they do to confuse the rest of us is change their surnames from time to time, usually to reflect their connection to another family through marriage or inheritance.

[chris_49]

Thanks for this Arthur. I tried Pitt-Rivers and Rivers and Fox but not Fox-Pitt. Anyway, the Chesterfield person is someone else. I don't know if I can be bothered to edit Wikipedia, especially the page of such an unpleasant person.