RootsChat.Com

I have different possible town of origin for Robert BARROW

So I can't look for his birth or baptism or early census

In 1861 he was age 33 a sapper & royal engineers

Described as soldier on marriage to Amelia RULE June 1861  Gillingham Kent

& In news articles in July & August  same year .

In 1871 he is a fishmonger birthplace given as Hastings
In 1881 he is a provisions dealer birthplace Chatham

Information was found about his wife & children in this post which is wrongly on Irish forum

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=882066.msg7548153#msg7548153

But I can't get back any further
Marriage gives father's name as Robert

I've ruled out the 11year old living with aunt Harriet kingsland in 1851  Sheldich Kent

There are lots of possibilities in Lancashire

He is not son of Robert Barrow rope maker + of Bolton lancs

When an ancestor is a single mother

I use a few techniques to identify possible surname of birth father

If the mother was a domestic servant or a lodger in the years preceding the birth .
I do a name search in DNA  search matches function
  of the employers & other staff

I also do a name search of the 4 great grandfathers named on trees of top matches .

This didn't work for my cousin's top match as it turns out that their great grandmother was also a single mother domestic servant so absolutely no surnames in common
So for a long time I had the bio father on the tree as "John from Yorkshire"
Eventually calculated the surname of another single mothers whose descendants were more distant . Her son was not called John but DNA links to him and his uncles suggested that was correct man

Now I'm calculating who was "John"s birth father .
There are clusters of matches  linking to a couple of candidates but locations are totally wrong .
I'm wondering if a stonemason from Liverpool would travel to Yorkshire for work .

I also do name searches on any witnesses at siblings weddings in years near the birth .
I've recently found a connection to one of the surname clusters by doing this .

Inspired by recent
" thinking outside the box" stories

Does anyone else do this ?

Not something I've looked at much before .

So a few questions are coming up
& I'm finding it hard to find court transcripts & articles about the case .

First question is about Aliases : is there any convention about which name is given first

I think it's the one arrested under and previous names go back in time so the last one listed most likely to be the original name .


I

Can anyone read this

it' could be  Geo short for George

But what is surname