emeltom,
To be honest, no, I'm not certain (there's quite a lot in my tree pre-civil registration and pre-census that I'm not certain about!). But now I'm thinking of possible reasons for a male not having the same surname as his father. I do have one example in my tree: a much more recent ancestor (whose parentage I'm certain of) was raised from a very young age by his mother and step-father and from that age he had the step-father's surname. As an adult he continued using that name and he even married with it and gave it to his children (though his death cert had both his original legal surname and his step-father's).
osprey, thanks for the point about the long 's' and the link, it's very helpful because a lot of people researching their family don't know about that, esp. newbies.
Lesley
