Stuck on a birth cert - newbie looking for pointers

[Skwide]

There's a baptism 25 January 1863, St Luke Marylebone
Monimia Ellen
parents Thomas + Ellen Archer
father Decd.

born 27 April 1860

Could this be an adoption?

[Annette7]

I feel certain that Ellen Archer was indeed Monimia's mother and would suggest that Ellen Archer told a few white lies - in 1861 she is shown as Married and the following year she married Samuel James Negus stating she was a widow.   As Monimia's birth entry on GRO is as Archer, and mmn shown as Archer too I suspect Ellen was passing herself off as married when the birth was registered too (if a birth was known to be illegitimate mmn would have been blank).  'Husband' Thomas Archer being ficticious and actually her fathers name.    A lot of white lies were often told for the sake of 'respectability'!

There is certainly no marriage of an Ellen Archer to a Thomas Archer!

So, Ellen passed herself off as a widow when she married Samuel James Negus - whether he was indeed Monimia's natural father or 'adopted' by him who can say.    Legal adoptions didn't start until 1927 - before then adoptions were informal and there would be no written record.

Ellen Archer was actually a twin - she and sister Charlotte baptised 28/9/1831 (each notated as twin) City of London Lying-in Hospital, Finsbury.

I can't seem to find Samuel Negus and Ellen after their marriage.

Annette
 

[Skwide]

Thanks very much Annette,

If I can reproduce your searches I will have learnt something today Your expert advice is really appreciated!

I've had a fairly clean search process so far, most things correlate barring year of birth being off by one (which I assume is common) - this is the only tricky one I've come across.

I found my first possible criminal ancestor too 

Cheers, Tim

[Skwide]

There's a baptism 25 January 1863, St Luke Marylebone
Monimia Ellen
parents Thomas + Ellen Archer
father Decd.

born 27 April 1860

I know there are many suggestions, but right now I'm following this lead trying to prove or disprove the hypothesis that:

Monimia's bio-dad was Thomas Archer
Monimia's step-dad is (Samuel?) James Negus.

It was looking good, until... And as I've been told I shouldn't be posting legible images, I'm going to give a sub transcription.

From Ancestry's scan of: London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1917, Westminster St Luke, St Marylebone 1855-1892, pages 30-31 for years 1862-63:

I have:

Monimia Ellen Archer, baptised on 25th Jan 1863
Entry: 285
Parents: Thomas and Ellen Archer
<ignore address>
"By whom the ceremony was performed" in the right hand column, it says:
<Illegible name>
-------------------
27th April 1860


Looking at the other entries on those 2 pages, each entry has a date added to that right hand column.

Mostly that date preceded the baptism date by 1-3 months.

I propose that that date is actually a date of birth, recorded in addition to the official headings of the form.

That's unfortunate, as it suggests here DoB was rather earlier and may break my working hypothesis.

Does that seem like reasonable logic?

[avm228]

27 April 1860 is recorded as the birthdate - there’s no mystery about that.  The relevant Jun qtr 1860 birth registration has been posted upthread by rosie99 at reply #9.

You’re extremely unlikely to be able to prove the child’s paternity.  As Annette7 has said, the likelihood is that “Thomas Archer” was a fiction created for respectability by the unmarried Ellen, using what was in fact her father’s name.

[Skwide]

27 April 1860 is recorded as the birthdate - there’s no mystery about that.  The relevant Jun qtr 1860 birth registration has been posted upthread by rosie99 at reply #9.

You’re extremely unlikely to be able to prove the child’s paternity.  As Annette7 has said, the likelihood is that “Thomas Archer” was a fiction created for respectability by the unmarried Ellen, using what was in fact her father’s name.

Hi,

Thanks for confirming the DoB side info thing.

This seems to suggest, superficially, that Monimia Ellen and Monimia Helen are different people.

3 censuses have the latter's DoB as "about 1862" - surely that's too big a difference to be valid? 1 year is believable, or could it be that she was told fibs when she was young to maintain a fiction she was born to James Negus and she's just run with those?

On the other hand, your theory ties in with the baptism being 3 years late by normal standards - she was waiting to "turn up to Church respectable" and presumably make an excuse to the vicar why they'd deferred.

I do apologise if this is tedious for you - my normal line of work deals in absolutes. I struggle when trying to handle fuzzy data... But your (you and everyone's) help is most appreciated

I'm interested in Monimia because her papertrail is a bit broken, but at the same time, she has a fairly unusual name, so I'm using this as a training exercise.

[avm228]

I don’t agree that the likelihood is that they are different people.   With a late April 1860 birthday she would correctly be the following ages when the census was taken in late March/early April.

11mo in 1861
10 in 1871
20 in 1881
30 in 1891

Etc.

Presumably she is not far out from any of these?  And yes she may well have been told fibs.

You definitely need to get used to “fuzzy data” in family history - people were much vaguer about their ages in the past, even when they were telling what they believed to be the truth 

[rosie99]

Census dates
1841 – 6 June.
1851 – 30 March.
1861 – 7 April.
1871 – 2 April.
1881 – 3 April.
1891 – 5 April.
1901 – 31 March.
1911 – 2 April.

I was also going to post as avm has that ages were not that far out to disregard

[Skwide]

Good point re the census months. I keep overlooking that these can throw ages out by nearly a year.

Thank you so much Then it does seem believable. My own maternal grandma has a provable DoB discrepancy of 1 year between her Death cert and Birth record, so I figured 1 year errors were not uncommon.

I appreciate your advice - I'm trying to get a feel for what things count as believable discrepancies and what things may not.

Cheers! Tim

PS I'm going to record James Negus as "step dad" which seems reasonable and put a question mark on the bio dad.