LMA - St Mary Haggerston 1857 marriage please?

[bugbear]

Following a recent thread (thanks to all) I would like to confirm that the GRO certificate I have is a "good" copy of the Parish Register.

Link to thread

The event is a marriage, Dec 26, 1857 between William Cole and Sarah West.

groom: age: full, rank: engineer, residence: Cambridge St, father: William Cole, rank: type founder
bride: age: full, rank: -, residence: ditto, father: Thomas Smith, rank: Butcher

both signed by "mark", and the witnesses were William Cole and James Sweet.

My concern is the bride's father's surname "Smith". It seems "obvious" that this should be "West"

Corroboration and/or snapshots would be truly welcome.

 BugBear

[dawnsh]

Hi bugbear

Researchers in and around London who visit the archives are few and far between. You may have to wait a while for a response.

I see from your other topic you have found out that the records are missing from the online dataset.

Dawn

[bugbear]

Hi bugbear

Researchers in and around London who visit the archives are few and far between. You may have to wait a while for a response.

I see from your other topic you have found out that the records are missing from the online dataset.

Dawn

Yes - it was suggested that the "true" primary sources be checked. It's possible that even thhe GRO version is mis-transcribed.

 BugBear

[davidft]

I have been at the LMA today and looked up the film. Ref X097/075 O91/MRY1/032-35 covers January 1855- 30 July 1862 for St Mary Haggerston.

Alas I can confirm the  certificate is a true copy of that which appears in the parish register page 164 entry number 327.

Sarah West’s father is very clearly given as Thomas Smith.
There is no other Thomas Smith on the surrounding pages for it to get confused with.

I did note that William Cole and Sarah West signed by giving their mark as did the witness William Cole Snr. The other witness, James Sweet, who signed was probably a church warden or such like as he witnessed 3 of the 4 weddings on 26 Dec 1857.

So conclusions either all the parties could not read and therefore did not spot the entry for Thomas Smith or else they were not actually present when the entry was written out (as well as the other possibilities you have already considered)

As the film I used covers January 1855- 30 July 1862 it looks like Ancestry either did not copy this film or did not upload it. I notice you have been in contact with them, would you like to get back in touch and give them an update ie that they have missed a film ?

David

[Lily M]

David - We must have passed one another by   

Here's so you can see it with your own eyes.  (Don't think I can show the whole thing).

No - sorry.  I can't get the attachments to work.  Maybe another day.  Anyway, as David says, it's very clearly Smith.

[dawnsh]

You can attach images to certain boards, including all look-up request boards, to prevent copyright infringements.

Small portions are allowed on others for deciphering purposes only.

I contacted the LMA about the missing images and transcriptions and got this generic type reply

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have reported this error to our content team. Feedback from you, our valued customer, helps us correct errors and improve the website. Your patience and efforts to assist us in this matter are appreciated.
 
Please understand that while we receive a large volume of error submissions to our queue, they represent a very small percentage of the total number of records on Ancestry. Due to the volume of error submissions, fixes to errors on Ancestry are posted firstly in the order of those which affect the greatest number of users, and thereafter in the order in which they are reported. This also depends on employee resources. For this reason, there is no foreseeable timeframe as to when these changes will be made. We appreciate your patience.

Other errors and omissions noted in 2009 and 2010 are still missing.

Dawn

[Lily M]

I've attached the image to the other thread

[davidft]

Update.

I notified the LMA that

Film Ref X097/075 O91/MRY1/032-35 covers January 1855- 30 July 1862 for St Mary Haggerston.

was missing from the Ancestry records.

I have had a reply from them confirming that it is indeed missing and that they will notify Ancestry of this. They did say they notify Ancestry on a regular basis of errors or missing records. So I guess the moral is if you find something is missing but you know the LMA has it let them know as there is more likelihood the LMA getting it corrected than us.

[bugbear]

I have been at the LMA today and looked up the film. Ref X097/075 O91/MRY1/032-35 covers January 1855- 30 July 1862 for St Mary Haggerston.

Alas I can confirm the  certificate is a true copy of that which appears in the parish register page 164 entry number 327.

Sarah West’s father is very clearly given as Thomas Smith.
There is no other Thomas Smith on the surrounding pages for it to get confused with.

I did note that William Cole and Sarah West signed by giving their mark as did the witness William Cole Snr. The other witness, James Sweet, who signed was probably a church warden or such like as he witnessed 3 of the 4 weddings on 26 Dec 1857.

So conclusions either all the parties could not read and therefore did not spot the entry for Thomas Smith or else they were not actually present when the entry was written out (as well as the other possibilities you have already considered)

As the film I used covers January 1855- 30 July 1862 it looks like Ancestry either did not copy this film or did not upload it. I notice you have been in contact with them, would you like to get back in touch and give them an update ie that they have missed a film ?

David

That is quite remarkable helpful of you.

Even if I had "fair copy" on ancestry, I'm not sure I'd have noted the repeated witness name - so I've learnt something  about looking properly too!

 BugBear