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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Milliepede on Saturday 10 February 24 16:31 GMT (UK)
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I know people made up fathers names for various reasons but how plausible do you think it is for someone to mistakenly put the wrong name?
I ask because have long been looking for the fate of an ancestor and none of the possible marriages have the correct fathers name.
He may not have married of course but in this case his father died when he was quite young (about 7) so :-\
All comments welcome.
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Just a thought - did his mother re-marry? I have known a number of instances where the child appears to change surnames to fit the new marriage!
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Nothing is 100% certain on any certificate.
I have several examples like BumbleB, also where a brother was named, another a a long dead grandfather.
My m-in-L was illegitimate and nothing is know about her father, she didn’t even know who her mother was until I brought her birth certificate (she only had the short version). On her first marriage the space for father is blank, on her second marriage she named her foster father.
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My 2 x Gr Grandfather married twice and on both occasions named his father as Thomas when he was in fact called William. No idea why he did this, but other evidence such as Wills etc appear to prove he was in fact the son of William. I don’t know where the name Thomas came from but he was the youngest child and his parents both died when he was young so perhaps he just had the wrong information.
Pinetree
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My 2 x Gr Grandfather married twice and on both occasions named his father as Thomas when he was in fact called William. No idea why he did this, but other evidence such as Wills etc appear to prove he was in fact the son of William. I don’t know where the name Thomas came from but he was the youngest child and his parents both died when he was young so perhaps he just had the wrong information.
Pinetree
Which Marriage Certificate are you going from ?
The Original Church Marriage Certificate
Or the Marriage Certificate Copy sent to the GRO that you applied for.
I have come across GRO copies sent to the GRO have Incorrect Names Copied from the Church Original Certificate
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Yes BumbleB his mother did remarry but after my last sighting of him when he was 16 and with mother and sisters. He isn’t with mother later on.
As has been said anything is possible but they sure don’t make it easy for us.
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Why would our ancestors make things easy for us? :o
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My ancestor's father died when he was 3, and when he married in 1856 he gave Matthew George Coombs as his father, and the right occupation, but Matthew G Coombs was his older brother's name and their father was always documented as George, plus I found George's baptism in 1790. I guess as his dad died when he was young, he was not 100% sure his father's name and assumed he was Matthew George Coombs the same as his brother. Although George born 1790 was the son of a Matthew Coombs.
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I have an illegitimate relative of the 1920s, but registered with the father’s name, which took ages to find. Then she used the maternal surname. When she married, her maternal grandfather’s name was used even though he had died, but it matched the name she was offering. In not using her birth name, she could not offer her father, who disappeared soon after birth. Nothing accidental, all intentional.
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Certificates can be a minefield of misinformation.
Not only parents and names can be wrong, ages and birth dates also, birthdays were not celebrated as the are to day, not everyone knew how old they were.
Stated birth places could be the ealiest place they remembered living, that could be miles from where they actually born.
Their own or their father's occupation could be highly exagerated.
The census can lead us on a wild goose chase.
Just think how dull research would be if it was easy because all the facts were completely true.;D
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Yes, my 2xgreat gran was born in Sussex but her parents moved to London when she was a baby and she said that she was born in that London area in census records.
I have some who fabricated their fathers occupation when they were just labourers, not carpenters etc.
John Hurt on WDYTYA found out his supposed royal roots was all false, and it was a wild goose chase.
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My grandfather's uncle married in the church of his wife, as is the custom. Although they lived a few miles apart they were of different religious denominations and it is possible the clergyman did not know the groom's family. His father's Christian name was Andrew but the clergyman put William as the groom's father. Since both families were well educated and able to read it would seem that they didn't notice the error at the time.
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Which Marriage Certificate are you going from ?
The Original Church Marriage Certificate
Or the Marriage Certificate Copy sent to the GRO that you applied for.
I have come across GRO copies sent to the GRO have Incorrect Names Copied from the Church Original Certificate
Both from parish records. It is odd because there are no Thomases in that branch of the family as far as I can tell.
Pinetree
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The details of the father, his name and/or occupation ( and now including the mother) has never been part of the legally required information that has to be given when marrying and so has never been subject to any check or verification, even today.
As a registrar I was surprised how many people actively chose to leave their fathers details off the register - usually after a family break up of some sort - it happened quite a few times. Likewise even when giving the details it was very common for the parties not to know their father's full name and occupation and sometimes had to run off to ask another family member for help.
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Some interesting observations here thanks. It’s making me think of going back and double checking all the possibles I rejected because the father’s name was wrong.
Especially one chap I followed all the way through and it was only when I got the marriage and fathers name was wrong I rejected it. Father was George same as his so certainly a plausible mistake.