Hi, first post here. I've been researching our family trees for a few years now. My wife's maternal and paternal trees were fairly easy, going back to 1627 without too much effort. However my own paternal tree was a nightmare. My great grandfather had no birth or death records, only a marriage record and an entry in the 1901 census.
Then last week I had a breakthrough. I had been told that my great grandfather (Daniel Giverin) had spent time in prison. I turned up several penal records which stated the name was "Daniel Gavin or Giverin". This was a big lightbulb moment because on my great grandfathers marriage banns his name is written "Daniel Gavin", then the Gavin is ruled through and Giverin was written above.
Once I started searching for Gavin rather than Giverin, the facts came flooding in and they do tie in with the little information I had before. I've definitely got the right guy. So he was born Gavin in 1878, his fathers surname was Gavin. 1881 and 1891 census he's Gavin. Then in 1897 he gets married under the name Daniel Joseph Giverin. He's Giverin in the 1901 census, then in the 1911 census, he's in Dartmoor prison as Daniel Gavin. I'm 90% sure he died in Lancaster 1935 as Daniel Gavin.
Does anyone know why he might have changed his surname? In the 1911 Dartmoor prison census, he is recorded as "weakminded" in the infirmity column. At the time that was another term for "imbecile". I wonder if that has anything to do with it? The thing is, the surname that he chose to adopt, the one I live with today, isn't a common surname but it is a surname of Irish origin. He didn't just make it up.
I'd love to hear the views of others on this. Thanks.
Quite a lot of info there, but not as to where he born and where were the census records were held - Salford as later mentioned is Manchester where a lot of Irish resided - Sheffield is South Yorkshire, so the 2 Daniel's are poles apart and need to be seperated from each other, so we know who is who, you were told your grt grandfather entertained prison, any clue as to why . . .
Maybe a baptism record to explain the Joseph, because if he was a Daniel Joseph by birth, then that would mean his name would also be Daniel Joseph on his any of his records from there on . . .
If the record writer can define the father of the groom as Giverin, then why not his son, maybe as simple as thinking it was Garvin and then as it is only at the wedding his father name would have come up and also written last, on realising his mistake, amended it forthwith . . .
To many Daniel Garvin's'/Giverin's here, spoiling the plot . . . (*-* )
