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Hello, In the course of researching a family in Scotland in the '50s and '60s I've come across something I haven't encountered before where a birth cert shows two names. I'll put the details below. Because the name is very rare I'll just put initials for the surnames and change the first names of the child and parents.

It's quite a large family and I recognise all the children whose births are shown on ScotlandsPeople apart from the youngest one. I could find no trace of him anywhere other than this birth registration. So eventually I succumbed and ordered a copy of the certificate to see if he had the same parents as the other children and he did - up to point!

This shows the child's name as Henry M, but his parents are shown as Arthur G and Elizabeth G.  The informant who is shown as being present at the birth was the father and the child was registered three days after his birth in 1962.

You'll notice that the surname is different from that of his parents.  At the foot of the birth cert it says "formerly known as Henry G" i.e the same name as his parents together with an RCE number.

There was another child born a couple of years later in England and I'm pretty sure to a different father although she was registered with the G surname - and at some point the parents divorced.
Bearing this in mind it suggests to me that Henry was not the natural son of Arthur and so I can understand the "formerly known as" bit. It's the three days that I find a little strange.

My theory is that the child was registered very soon after his birth with the G surname but within 3 days of his birth the mother told her husband that the child wasn't actually his so he rushed off to the Registrar to change it.

I'd be interested to hear what other people think about this.

TIA

Judith

Hannah Hall was the daughter of Frederick Luke Stott and his wife Ellen Howard Stott and was born ca 1849. I've found out a little about her family - she had an older sister Sarah Jane who may have married William Brierley a brass founder, a brother John Howard Stott who took over his father's business and a younger sister Ellen Howard Stott.

Hannah married Samuel Gifford Hall, some 15 years her junior, in March,1896, two months after the death of her mother. Samuel sailed to New York in Dec the following year, travelling on to San Francisco where, according to the passenger list, he had lived some years earlier. (He was born in England).

Hannah and her sister Ellen are shown in the 1901 census as visitors at the house of Thomas Crabtree in Quarry Street, Rochdale. Both shown as "living on their own means". (Their father left a considerable sum in his will on his death in 1891.)

Ellen died in 1906, but I haven't been able to discover any more about Hannah since the 1901 census.

The reason I'm interested is that Samuel Gifford Hall must have returned to England at some point because he met my great aunt, married her and they went to Australia in 1909 where they settled.
I have never been able to find a record of their marriage, but corresponded with their daughter some years ago. She told me she had a copy of their marriage certificate which showed they were married in Bootle in Jan 1909. She had no family and I have no idea what happened to all her papers. *Interesting footnote below.

I'm trying not to be too suspicious here but.......   Samuel (or Gifford as he sometimes called himself) married an older woman with money, left her less than two years after their marriage and then marries someone else although there appears to be no record of this.

There are several deaths between 1901 and 1909 for women called Hannah Hall of roughly the right age, but obviously I can't buy all the certificates. Unlike her sister she doesn't appear to have left a will and I can't find her on any passenger lists going to join her husband. (Can't find SGH coming back, either, but he must have done as he and his new wife are shown going to Australia in 1909.)

Any idea where to look next? I could get a copy of her sister's will to see if she's mentioned in it, which might show she was still alive at the time it was written, but other than that I'm not sure what the next step is. I would like to prove that everything was above board.

*Amazingly, whilst doing a google search for info about their daughter, simply entering her name and the town, I found letters to and from her for sale on eBay. Apparently the seller, a stamp dealer, bought a box of letters  at a stamp and coin fair in her home town some years after her death.  Amongst them were three letters written by one of my uncles to her when he was teaching in Baghdad in the 1920s! I still can't quite believe that she kept them all those years, but I've bought them and very interesting reading they make, too. I'm hoping to buy some of the other letters if he brings the price down.

My daughter gave me a "Dear Grandma" journal at Christmas to use for writing about my life for my grandchildren. It has blank pages, but each page has a heading and the first one is "the place I was born". I've been scouring the internet for a photo of the old CH Maternity Hospital but all I can find are ones of it boarded up and ready for demolition, very sad. I have several books about Southport but can't find a photo in those either. I don't live locally so can't go to the library to look for one. Is anyone able to upload a photo of how it used to be?

Many thanks,

Judith

Is anyone able to check whether there is an MI for a Hardyman or Hardiman Nelson buried in Silsden on 5th November 1898 please?

Many thanks.

Judith