Mistakes

[suttontrust]

I've been struck by the number of "mistakes" I've come across in official documents whilst gathering data on my relatives.  Marriage registration seems particularly prone to it.  There's the mariage register in Canada which shows the soldier groom as a Corporal when he was only a Gunner, and the marriage certificate in Carlisle which shows the groom as a general labourer when he was actually a serving soldier.  Then there's the marriage certificate which gives the ages of both bride and groom as a year more than they were.  All my examples come from the 19th and early 20th centuries.  I suppose people rarely had to produce proof of ID in those days.  But it does show the need to have more than one source of information.

[Darcy]

I have a few certificates with mistakes or straight out porkie pies such as 'of full age' on a marriage cert. when great grandma was, in fact, sixteen years old.

Yesterday I received a marriage certificate for 2nd great grandmother whose father, a butcher, is recorded as deceased on her birth certificate ( I have the death certificate ) Well, there he is on the marriage certificate, alive and well and a Labourer

Amazing stuff!
Aaron

[munchies]

I have a great aunts marriage certificate which states father richard deceased whereas father was elias deceased and richard was brother alive. Could have been vey confusing if I hadn't known for definite who they already were. i can only guess that brother richard gave her away in place of father and name was mixed up on the certificate. But it does make me wary of believing every detail on other certificates
Donna

[Kimi]

Hello all,

I have also found this in several of my documents.  On my Great Grandmother's marriage certificate her Brother is down as her Father - nearly ended up chasing a whole different branch of family!  On another one, the Father is "Deceased" but I know that he wasn't at the time.  I  have one where "full age" was used when in fact, one of them was a minor.  Another one says that the informat of a death was the Widow of the deceased but she was his Daughter-in-Law - His wife had died some years before - Talk about try to confuse you