On two Pallot separate marriage records I can see that MADY ancesters had name amended in Oct 1839 from Madit. Can anyone share any light what this means or why, or where I might dig a little deeper please. How did the entry get there? Subsequently or a declaration at the time of marriage?
thx in advance
Pallot’s Marriage Index is simply that – an
index, not a primary source. It consists of hundreds of paper slips, filed in drawers and boxes, just like a card index. It was originally created from parish registers and bishop’s transcripts, which are the primary source.
For the example given here, in the parish register (St Andrew Holborn) the name was originally written
Madit in 1832 and was corrected to
Mady in 1839. The authority is written in the margin of the register: ‘Amended according to Declaration delivered to me this 29th October 1839 – J T Robinson Rector.’ Probably one of the parties to the marriage submitted a correction.
A copy of the original entry in the marriage register may have been needed in 1839 as a parish certificate, to prove something – inheritance, or (at the other end of the scale) entitlement to parish assistance or charitable benefit. Perhaps when the marriage entry was accessed for copying, an error was noticed and the correction was made at the same time.
But I see the signature has been amended, as well as the main body of the entry. Why the name was changed is anybody’s guess. Maybe it was originally French and pronounced
Ma-dee? That might explain changing the end to a more familiar English spelling for that sound? Just a guess.
