View Full Version : Using primary sources.
I have, for years, looked for my mother’s birth cert. She was born 25th March 1928, according to her and her parents.
After her parents died, she wanted a passport and found no birth cert. A cert was made for her on her info with a stat dec., and witnessed, etc
so….I have a copy of that cert, and if I apply for her birth cert, that is the one I’d be sold.
Her younger brother also had to do the same, however, one day he visited his old school and was invited to view the old roll books. Here he found both his and my mother’s names, with a different surname.
Mum had passed away by this time but uncle applied for a birth cert for himself in the name he found.
The entire cert is lies. His parents names, when and where they were married, etc. He presumes his date of birth is correct and his first and middle names are correct. His father’s name is wrong, as is his mother’s. Her place of birth is wrong. Date and place of marriage is wrong as they weren’t married at the time.
I then bought my grandparents’ marriage cert from 1955. Another pack of lies.
Sometimes even primary sources are not what they are cracked up to be…lol
Sib and future spouse lied about residence so they could marry where they wanted. So did my grandparents. Mum married on her birthday so her age is wrong.
Cousin registered our great aunt's death. He guessed the details he did not know.
And my place of birth is different to what I was told.
So that's five different certificates that contain errors or lies.
Amazing, isn’t it? I suppose they didn’t have to provide any ID then.
My mother lied about her address when she married, she gave her uncle Jack's post office across the road because the parish boundary ran in front of her house, though she left her packed suitcase there in case anybody checked (as if!) one of her grandmothers did the same in order to marry in a different church, no idea if she did the suitcase trick.
Margaret in Burton
17-07-23, 08:03
My mother lied about her address when she married, she gave her uncle Jack's post office across the road because the parish boundary ran in front of her house, though she left her packed suitcase there in case anybody checked (as if!) one of her grandmothers did the same in order to marry in a different church, no idea if she did the suitcase trick.
I did similar. I wanted to marry at a certain church as had many of my family. Unfortunately the parish boundary ran across the middle of our road and we lived on the wrong side. I gave my grandfathers address. The vicar knew, in fact it was his idea. He was leaving so wasn’t too bothered. He mentioned the suitcase although I didn’t. One night a temporary vicar knocked on granddads door and asked to speak to me. Granddad said I was out. Vicar then asked if I really lived there. Granddad said, “ I may be old but I’m not bl***dy stupid. I know who lives in my house.’”
Luckily we had a retired Canon marry us so didn’t have to face the temporary vicar.
ElizabethHerts
17-07-23, 08:32
When I married I was living in London but I wanted to marry at my grandmother's parish church just outside Guildford (my parents and sister also married there). Also, my mother was living in Devon where I grew up and it was too far away for some guests. By this time my grandmother was dead, so the address I gave was that of a neighbour of my grandmother's in Guildford. My OH's address is that of the flat in which I was living in London as he had moved out of his flat a few months earlier!
When my brother died my sister-in-law had to provide lots of details. Many years later I mentioned that he was born in Guildford, as were my sister and I. She was very surprised as she assumed he had been born where my parents were living at the time. The information she provided at the time of his death was therefore wrong.
Olde Crone
17-07-23, 11:06
I value primary sources as being the FIRST time they told a lie, lol.
My ex and I lied about our addresses on the marriage cert, I forget why now!
I have three different copies of the marriage of James Holden and Ellen Grimshaw. A photcopy of the church register, a handwritten modern copy from the local RO and a handwritten copy from the GRO. You would hardly believe it was the same couple! Father's forenames transposed, (and invented) Smith Street turned into South Street, ages transposed.
As an old chap said to me once "every time man picks up a pen there is an opportunity for error" and I can certainly attest to that.
OC
Oh, the handwritten GRO copies from the 1970s.
Papermaker was an entirely plausible occupation, as there were paper mills in the locality - but it should have said Ropemaker.
However, Gasman in the 1840s for father of the middle-aged bride? It should have said Yeoman!
If I had money to burn, I'd order marriage certs for some Chulmleigh weddings, as the scribe transposed the fathers' names in several of the originals.
I probably said this before, but a man on my tree was divorced from his wife and then went on to have three children with other women. In each case he named his ex-wife as the mother at the registration, totally disregarding the biological mother in each case. Until I came across this I tended to think it was only the father's details that needed questioning!!
Olde Crone
17-07-23, 12:40
Yes, I remember a search where the mother's name did not accord with the woman the children were living with. Turned out he was a service man estranged from his wife and in a very long term relationship with someone else. He registered the children in the name of his estranged wife in order to get the army allowance for the children.
OC
Margaret in Burton
17-07-23, 12:55
Yes, I remember a search where the mother's name did not accord with the woman the children were living with. Turned out he was a service man estranged from his wife and in a very long term relationship with someone else. He registered the children in the name of his estranged wife in order to get the army allowance for the children.
OC
Yes, that was a tree I was researching, my nieces husbands family.
Mary from Italy
17-07-23, 15:19
I've no doubt mentioned this before, but I had to ditch a large part of my tree when it turned out that my grandmother's father wasn't her mother's husband.
They'd separated long before she was born, although I still don't know exactly when, but for some reason her mother kept putting his name on the birth certificates of her children by various men for several years.
Olde Crone
17-07-23, 16:43
Mary
Ah, but if the question was "what is your husband's name?" rather than " who is the father of this child? " then it's an opportunity too good to miss!
OC
kiterunner
17-07-23, 18:47
My 2nd cousin three times removed, Emily Jane Haskoll Parsons, married William Payne in 1913. Then they split up, he lived with her sister May (both Emily and May had children by him in 1914), and Emily married Joseph Lionel Griffiths in 1916, but she used the name Evelyn Rawlings on the marriage cert and gave her maiden name as Rawlings on their children's birth registration. She is Evelyn on the 1921 census, with a birthplace of Bath when it should be Godalming. Meanwhile her sister May is down as Emily J H Paye on the 1921 census but does appear as May on the 1939 Register.
There really was an Evelyn Rawlings born in Bath in 1889 but it seems that Emily stole her identity (although she does give her real dob on the 1939 Register). So the "primary sources" for this branch of the family are not much use!
A while ago I was helping someone with their research. In a five year stretch there were just two men registered with their ancestor's name, both in the same year, but different quarters in the same county. I got the birth date for one from their baptism entry and both were with their respective parents in 1911. By 1939 both men were using the same dob! The one I didn't have a date for was registered before the other one, so couldn't have been born the same day. The two fathers had different names. Might have been interesting to see their marriage certificates!
OH has Irish cousins. Two first cousin girls were born, one in 1898 and the other in 1900 and were given the same name (their father's were brothers). Only one of then seems to have been registered. They both appear on the 1901 census in Cork with their respective families. By 1911 one girl had died and the other was still with her parents. The dead child's death certificate has all the correct details. The surviving child came to England where she married. The marriage certificate has the correct father's name. A few years later came the 1939 Register. Low and behold, she was using her dead cousin's date of birth. The same was recorded when she passed away. I can only imaging she needed a birth cert for something and the only one that could be provided was her cousin's, so she just went with that!
Olde Crone
18-07-23, 09:19
Merry
I'm sure you remember my friend's gran who received her pension four years early because the GRO provided her with her dead sister's birth certificate. Gran protested to the end of her life (98 or 94 lol) that it was the wrong one but everyone just said there there dear.
OC
Yes I do remember - Charlotte v Lottie?!
Olde Crone
18-07-23, 19:03
Merry
Yes, that's the one. I knew you'd remember.
OC
Olde Crone
19-07-23, 08:07
Merry, I'm thinking about leaving you all my family history papers when I go as you are the only person who has ever shown an interest. Haha!
OC
kiterunner
23-07-23, 22:03
Another one I have found today, though admittedly I haven't seen the actual marriage cert, just a transcription is William Baxter and Mary Ann Abrahams's marriage 24 Mar 1863 at St John, Penge, Surrey. Both FamilySearch and FreeREG say that Mary Ann's father is down as George Berridge, stationer and printer. But George Berridge was only about 6 years older than Mary Ann and was actually the husband of her stepdaughter from her previous marriage (Anna Jane Abrahams), making him Mary Ann's stepson-in-law, not her father! I can only imagine that he "gave her away" since her father and her stepfather were both dead, and somehow his details came to be written down as father on the marriage record. He was also a witness at the wedding. (His father was Isaac Berridge, lighterman, so they aren't talking about a previous generation.) Her father was really William Cottam.
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