what does this mean?

[puzzled]

I have a copy of my mothers birth certificate 1907. There is no name given for her father so I assume her parents were not married. However it gives her mother's name as Wood formerly Adams.
Does that mean she was married but that her hasband was not the father? Any ideas please.

[Guy Etchells]

I have a copy of my mothers birth certificate 1907. There is no name given for her father so I assume her parents were not married. However it gives her mother's name as Wood formerly Adams.
Does that mean she was married but that her hasband was not the father? Any ideas please.

It simply means that the mother had the surname at the time of registration of the birth of WOOD but that at some time previously she had the surname ADAMS.
This could be due to her marrying Mr. WOOD, it could be due to her calling herself WOOD.
It could even be that she was born ADAMS but her mother married a WOOD and the children called themselves that.

The fact that no father's name was given does not necessarily mean no marriage though it could. It could simply mean no answer was given to that question.
Cheers
Guy

[Geoffers]

To try and find which of Guy's suggestions fits the bill, you might first of all look at the 1901 census http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ and see if you can locate the mother - I do hope this wasn't in the centre of some large city.

If you can find her in 1901 this will give an age and show any other children - it may show her with a husband - maybe he died before 1907 - or possibly abandoned her? Or she might be single.

In any case it will help you to narrow down a period to try and search for a possible marriage, presumably between a WOOD and an ADAMS and what may have happened to the husband.

If all that is as clear as mud, please say so and I'll try to explain it better.

Geoffers

[puzzled]

Thank for all your previous help. I have now found a marriage for Fanny, but I have also found out that she was a widow in 1905. So now have no idea who the father is, I guess I will never know . I found her on the 1901 census on Ancestry, by going through the census for Hertford. When I tried to find it by putting in her details it came up with nobody found! Is it unreliable or was I doing something wrong? Thanks again .

[Pam Downes]

I found her on the 1901 census on Ancestry, by going through the census for Hertford. When I tried to find it by putting in her details it came up with nobody found! Is it unreliable or was I doing something wrong? Thanks again .Hi Puzzled,
I suspect you couldn't find her by the usual search method because her surname was mistranscribed. If her hubby's George and she's on RG13/1305 folio 74 page 11, she's indexed as Fanny Weed.
I often resort to searching on combinatins such as first name/age/place of birth or first name/age/place likely to be living because some of the surname indexing leaves a lot to be desired. :D Then I scour the list for names that my surname could have been mistranscribed as.
A tip from Geoffers when forum members were trying to help someone the other day - if you can't find someone on the Ancestry index try the index on the other 1901 census site. It worked in the other instance and worked with Fanny too.
http://www.1901censusonline.com/
Pam Downes

[puzzled]

Thanks Pam, I hadn't thought of someone reading it as Weed! Not only is poor Fanny called Weed, her daughter Nellie Doris is down as Nellie Boris!! I shall have to be more carefull. I'm pretty sure I've found Fanny and George's marriage they both on the same page so must be right, I hope. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply.