"MISSING" Cornelius George Lawrence.....UPDATED and none the wiser

[Valda]

Marriage certificates are the most fabricated or at least embellished documents we rely on for our information. People in the past have adjusted their ages for various reasons. They often don't chose to use all their first names or in a different order, maybe not even the surname they had at birth. They might elevate their occupation slightly and if they don't do that then if their father is no longer around his might get the elevation. Their address in towns, might very well be one of convenience for the marriage - for instance the same address even though one of them lives in a different place - saves on the cost of banns being called twice. If they are illegitimate father's names may be made up. You have a choice if you are illegitimate telling everyone (they might not know) or hiding it and giving a father's name on marriage for propriety's sake - which would you chose?
Amongst my records I have an illegitimate man who married four times - each time he gave different names and occupations for his father, as he got older, moved up in the world and moved away from his home. Who was to know? At the last wedding I attended the groom put his stepfather as his father on the certificate. This was the man who had brought him up and whose surname he shared. It wasn't his genetic father.
Liam Gallagher on his marriage refused to even have his father's name put on his certificate.
There was/is no question asked on the certificate about whether father's were deceased. If they were not asked the non-existant question then there is no reason for it to be put on the certificate. They might have said 'oh but by father's dead' in which case the 'scribe' may or may not have entered the information. Even if deceased is written on the certificate it might not mean the father is dead. Again I have instances of that on certificates. The father ran away with another woman, so as far as his children were concerned it was more face saving to say he was deceased.
Of course whoever is writing the information on the certificate could get it wrong. If a couple married in church a duplicate copy was made of the certificate for the local registrar. Once the certificate arrived at the local registrar a copy was made and this was  sent to the GRO where a clerk copied some of the details into the index (no check was made that the clerk copied the details into the index correctly and when the handwritten indexes got too old the GRO brought in temps to type the handwritten indexes - nobody proof read their typing and the old indexes were thrown out). A lot of copying involved here before you get to see your 'original' GRO marriage certificate or find the reference in the index - an index which obviously has mistakes in it.
Birth certificates can also be embellished. I have several where I know the child was illegitimate but the mother bluffed it out, borrowed a ring and arrived at the registrar as Mrs...... The last certificate I know like that was in the 1930s. I know the gentleman whose birth certificate it is. His parents were living together at the time but never married.
You should really take all historical documents with a pinch of salt until you can prove them with other records. They are only as good as the information supplied and as good as the person writing it down and/or copying the written information (this very much includes censuses to).

Regards

Valda

[caroline hammill]

Morning Valda,

Thank you so much for explaining this to me, i never thought that they could just put down a name to suit them.
So i shall have to take Cornelius George lawrence father on his marraige cert to be most likely made up....unless his mother told him at some point that this was his father.
I think another way to see what he says about his father is that George had a second marraige after his first wife died, i think next month ...if i can find the details...i'll order that marraige cert and see what he puts for his father then.

Thank you

CAZ

[Tiffy]

Hello Caz, well much of what Valda says is what I have been thinking.  I too found William and Ann Herbert in Queen Street Cheltenham 1871 and again, I think in 1881 with further children.  However, if Clara was first born, followed by two boys 1866 and 1868, then why was Clara shunted off to live with their Aunts??  At one stage I thought that Clara might just have been visiting on the day of the 1871 census, but this is not the case because she seems to be living with them up to 1901 and probably by 1903 where I think I found her death.
It seems so strange to give the first born child (of a legal marriage) away to family to bring up, doesn't it?

There is also the senario that Ann just took William's surname without ever marrying, that used to happen then and all children were legally registered by both parents under Herbert surname.

With Cornelius, as I mentioned a few messages back, Charlotte (or someone) may have come clean in order for his marriage details, or fictitious to save face at time of marriage.  Was the Charlotte witness to marriage Senior or Junior.  If by Charlotte junior suspect this might be a true father name, if Mother was dead at time of marriage and no further embarrassment to her.

As there seems to be no sons produced by Charlotte Senior and you suspect incest, then perhaps an Uncle or Cousin were involved!!!

One could keep going.

Tiffy

[caroline hammill]

Hi Tiffy, i have no idea which Charlotte was a witness at Cornelius George Lawrence wedding, His Grandmother was still alive at the time, so it could have been her or his Aunt.
Think i'll wait till next month to see if i can get what looks like his 2nd marraige to an Eliza Pearce (his neighbours wife on one census !!!!!) see if he has a father down on that and who the witnesses are.

Thank you all for helping with this.

CAZ   

[Tiffy]

Caz, just typed a load of stuff and lost it!!! briefly, you stated Charlotte and James Arundell as witnesses to Cornelious marriage.

Matilda, who does not seem to be around whatever I do - if she was not at wedding, then Charlotte Jnr or Snr, whichever witnessed might have come clean for this purpose, as there was no embarrassment to Matilda!  If Cornelius married in his own parish, it might have been risky to name somebody who was NOT his father.  It looks very suspicious that he is registered LAWRENCE the same surname as Matilda and YET his father is stated as LAWRENCE although Matilda is still a single Lawrence.  However, I don't know if people had to produce their birth certificates as proof of age in those days, and if they did, they would have seen that his father was not on the certificate, but how you could check as to what the procedure was before banns I don't know

Look forward to hearing when you get 2nd marriage cert

regards

Almost exhausted

Tiffy 

[Valda]

I have plenty examples of marriages later and earlier where people are giving incorrect information on their marriages about all the things I have stated. I even have an example of a woman who married bigamously in 1910. Deserted by her husband who had run off and with no hope of affording a divorce she married in the name of her younger sister - (who married later the same year). The woman married out of area, to a man who knew she was marrying bigamously, but because of his job they had to marry, they couldn't just live together as man and wife (this was all known by the family and remembered today, but I also have the certificate with the evidence). In the man's job it would have been necessary at the time for him to lead a decent and upstanding life and be seen to be 'legally' married. His job - he was a Metropolitan police office!!

I think it exceedingly unlikely that Cornelius would dream of naming a father who anyone could construe as being his father through an incestuous relationship - who would admit to that in front of their in laws to be?! You would surely go for the most face saving option on the day - hiding your illegitimacy.
A marriage ususally took place in the woman's parish not the man's. Even if it was Cornelius's parish at the time it wasn't necessarily the same parish in Cheltenham he was born in, or if it was, even the same vicar. A large town is not the same as a village were the vicar knew everyone's business whether they attended his church or not and this was 21 years later.

In 1869 though it was a legal requirement to register births, there was no punishment for not doing so. That didn't happen until 1875. In 1869 a large proportion of those marrying may not have had a birth certificate, either because they were born before July 1837 or their births had never been registered (or it was well lost and they were not sure in what district it had been registered in the first place). Some may have been born abroad. Others would have to have tried to find where their baptism had taken place as their only proof, if they had all been required to produce some evidence of their birth to marry. How likely would it be that people could all produce this documentation in 1869? Even if they could how could you prove it was their birth certificate or their baptismal record and not somebody else's?

I'm not sure Ann would quite see it the same way as a more modern day interpretation may see it, that of giving her daughter away to others in the family. Extended families didn't quite work like that. Clara slept at her aunts' home (do remember the census only picks up who slept there that night not who lived there day in day out) so it is possible on that first census (1871) that is what she was doing, sleeping there that night, before leaving her own home as a younger woman to get out from under her mother's feet and live permanently with her favourite aunts - possibly as a support for them as they got older.  Even if as a young child she was sleeping at her aunt's home for whatever reason, she was likely to be in and out of her parent's home as well.

Regards

Valda

[caroline hammill]

Hi Valda, thanks for the info, im trying to take on board what you're saying, its not easy when you've got a telly blaring in one ear and a son in the other all whilst the hubby just lies there on the settee !!!!!

Next month i'll order Cornelius's second marraige cert and see what it says on there for father.

CAZ   

[Tiffy]

Dear Caz,

please don't forget to let me know how you get on with 2nd marr cert for Cornelius

Lynne

[Tiffy]

Hi Caz, I'm still breathing, did you get any further with Missing Cornelius

xxLynne