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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Paulo Leeds on Monday 05 February 18 17:54 GMT (UK)
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The person in question is one William L G Beevers, born to Cornelia Beevers (née Ringstead) in 1913 in Leeds.
Cornelia married a William T Garforth in 1915.
The first attachment is the younger William's birth certificate (1913) where he is listed as William L Garforth and a line is drawn through the part about the father.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/ZD937YD.png)
The second attachment is Cornelia's death certificate. The informant is listed as W Beevers (son).
[Imgur]http://(https://i.imgur.com/Z5TrASb.jpg)
Can anyone help as to why he would have in 1935 put his name down as Beevers, when on his birth certificate it is Garforth. He was certainly born out of wedlock, and possibly to a different man to the one his mother married 2 years later.
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A warm welcome to rootschat :).
No attachments as yet......
Deleted misunderfstood the situation :-[
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added (working) links ::)
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My interpretation is :
The column of birth certificate with his name is his FORENAME William L Garforth SURNAME will be that of his parent BEEVERS. Cornelia probably added Garforth to William jnr's forenames to indicate his father, who she later married although William jnr did not take his surname.
ADDED: Here's his birth registration from https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/indexes_search.asp
BEEVERS, WILLIAM LAWRENCE GARFORTH Mother's maiden name RINGSTEAD
GRO Reference: 1913 S Quarter in LEEDS Volume 09B Page 662
Strangely I don't see a Ringstead/Beevers marriage?
Only this
Marriages Sep 1887
GILLISPIE Alice Chorlton 8c 969
JACKSON William Chorlton 8c 969
MORRIS George Chorlton 8c 969
RINGSTEAD Cornelia Chorlton 8c 96
ADDED again:
Ahhh - George Morris died 1896 & Cornelia married William Fenton Beevers in
Marriages Dec 1899
Beevers William Fenton Salford 8d 172
Morris Cornelia Salford 8d 172
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The marriage was 1915 - Cornelia Beevers and William Garforth (her 3rd husband)
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Yes, I was looking to see how she was Beevers....
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Yeah :)
so you wouldn't put someone's surname in the Birth Certificate box under "Name" ?
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Short answer - no!! If you live in England/Wales - have you got your own birth certificate to look at?
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he was known by the surname Garforth to people throughout his life so must have assumed that name on account of the man his mother married when he was 2.
We are still unsure as to whether this man would have been the biological father or not, and may never know I guess.
Would he have encountered difficulties with electoral roll and general officialdom (getting a bank account/house etc...) by not using his Birth Certificate name do you think?
Also, why do you think on the birth certificate the box about Father is crossed out?
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The three names in the same column are all three of his full forenames.
His surname is his mother's surname, Beevers.
He was always Beevers, you've just "misread" it by seeing Garforth and thinking "that looks like a surname, so that must be his 2 forenames and 1 surname, when it's his 3 forenames.
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.
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In those days, documentary evidence was rarely required for anything.
No father would be entered on the birth certificate if a child was illegitimate UNLESS the father was present at the registration. The child would be assumed to have the surname of his mother if married [even children born several years after the death of their mother's husband [if not remarried] took the name of the mother's deceased husband. The registrar only wrote down what he was told.
Here's an example of a birth certificate for a Samuel Rowlands showing no surname in Name column.
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Thankyou, so in this case we must assume that William Garforth snr (whether the real dad or not) was not at the birth/registration and Cornelia must have intended for her son to be known by the surname Garforth not Beevers and simply (as you say) put Garforth in as one of her son's "middle" names.
Would he have encountered difficulties with electoral roll and general officialdom (getting a bank account/house etc...) by not using his Birth Certificate surname do you think?
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As I said before:
In those days, documentary evidence was rarely required for anything.
And one's name is what one is commonly known as - as long as there is no intention to defraud, you can be known by a name of your own choosing.
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Fair enough.
When (roughly) do you think that all changed?
I imagine someone born today would have a lot more difficulty in just adopting a surname of their choosing in such a way?
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Probably not until the 1940s/50s.
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I havn't seen the death certificate (1977), but would you imagine that it says Beevers even though he was known as Mr Garforth throughout his whole life?
Also, which site were you using in your first reply to track down the Beevers wedding please?
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I havn't seen the death certificate (1977), but would you imagine that it says Beevers even though he was known as Mr Garforth throughout his whole life?
So he married as William L T Garforth
Marriages Sep 1937
Garforth William L T Johnson Leeds South 9b
Johnson Gladys Garforth Leeds South 9b 1384
Death registered as Thomas William Garforth?
Deaths Dec 1977
GARFORTH THOMAS WILLIAM 13JE1913 LEEDS 5 139
You could get a copy of this certificate as a .pdf for £6 from https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/default.asp
He may have discarded the name Beevers because he knew it was not his ancestry.
Also, which site were you using in your first reply to track down the Beevers wedding please?
All from freebmd.org - GRO indexes transcribed by hero volunteers.
Would he have encountered difficulties with electoral roll and general officialdom (getting a bank account/house etc...) by not using his Birth Certificate surname do you think?
Don't forget that till relatively people dealt in cash - were paid in cash, shopped with cash, and spent most of their income on living. They also rented property rather than buying & unlikely to have any savings/investment.
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Would he have encountered difficulties with electoral roll and general officialdom (getting a bank account/house etc...) by not using his Birth Certificate name do you think?
As for the electoral roll, the 2017 general election was the first one where voters had to supply a National Insurance Number to get registered (or prove your identity in some other way). So up to then your name on the electoral roll did not have to match any other records.
More generally, the difficulties someone will encounter in choosing to use a different name from their "legal" one mostly come from the modern era of computers taking over people's jobs (such as bank managers'), combined with anti terrorism/anti money laundering rules being applied rigidly.