Christian Names

[valerie coleman]

Can anyone tell me whether the christian name on a marriage certificate should be the same as on the birth certificate please. I ask because my great grandfather was called Harry but I've found out from the web that Harry's are also known as Henry and Jack's are known as John. When I'm searching records for my great grandad should I be looking for a Harry or a Henry? I'm confused.

[Mythology]

It depends what quarter the wind was in when the wedding was planned.

I have people who, when compared with the birth record, dropped their middle name when they got married, people who added a middle name, people who reversed their forenames, people who used their middle name instead of their first name, not to mention straightforward things like deciding to be Tom instead of Thomas.

I have a Deborah who presumably fell out with the aunt who she was named after, decided to be Kate, and stuck to Kate when she married and on every census therafter- but is then Deborah again when she dies, so I guess she must have told her son (he being the informant) what her "real" name was somewhere along the line.

People did exactly what they pleased with their names - there are no "rules".

[valerie coleman]

what chance have we all got then?

[Mythology]

In some cases, very little - I have no doubt that some of those who I'm still missing have succeeded in disguising themselves so well that I haven't recognised them.

A lot depends on how common the surname is, whether they were stick-in-the-muds or wanderers, what you know about the rest of the family (so, for example, you'll recognise someone's brother-in-law on a census or whatever), whether there are wills - in one branch where I've been lucky, I've found out more from wills than I have from scratching my head over the census or the GRO index - all sorts of variables, so I wouldn't like to quote odds.

The irritating ones (well, to me, at least) are those where I *suspect* that I've identified the right person but there's insufficient evidence to put it in the tree. I'm going to stick my neck out on yet another will when I next go into town, as a *real* long-shot which *might* clear up a mystery - it may well be a complete red herring, but I can't identify the fellow as anyone *else*, so it's worth a fiver to find out.

[Pam Downes]

Hi Valerie,
My advice would be to look for all and any variants for both Christian and surnames. Especially surnames when the variant is not next alphabetically to the one you're actually searching for. e.g. Wattam and Whattam. Even Dickenson and Dickinson may not be consecutive. Sometimes the surname variants will be on the same page so it makes sense to search for the variants at the same time rather than go through 10 years of quarters looking for Harry without success, only to find when you look for Henry, that he's there in the second quarter you look at. :)
I've had Thomas William calling himself Thomas Frederick and Sophia Jessie and Walter Jacob both changing their names around.
Plus of course Lizzie, Reg, Roy, and Joe who were in fact Mary Elizabeth, Albert Reginald, Edward Roy, and Charles Walter. Though as they were living the family knew their correct names.
Pam

[waspexile]

It depends what quarter the wind was in when the wedding was planned.

I have people who, when compared with the birth record, dropped their middle name when they got married, people who added a middle name, people who reversed their forenames, people who used their middle name instead of their first name, not to mention straightforward things like deciding to be Tom instead of Thomas.

I have a Deborah who presumably fell out with the aunt who she was named after, decided to be Kate, and stuck to Kate when she married and on every census therafter- but is then Deborah again when she dies, so I guess she must have told her son (he being the informant) what her "real" name was somewhere along the line.

People did exactly what they pleased with their names - there are no "rules".

I would "ditto" all this"!
2 examples from my family are my grandfather who had 3 middle names Thomas George Smith (yes, its a middle name).
He only appears as Thomas once, George twice and the rest of the time as Jeff! (surname is Jefferies)
His brother is William Henry Jack and almost always appears as Jack, a similar story to above.

You have to just keep on checking and sometimes just take a stab in the dark. Another one of my great uncles is ALWAYS on the census as Dennis, as he was known by my father. When I got his birth/wedding cert it turns out his first name was Horace.

[Karen Newman]

Hi Valerie

I agreed with everything everyone has said and would just add this:
My great-grandfather was registered as Harry, married as Harry and died as Harry - it is a valid first name in its own 'right', but you can't rule out Henry either. I first came across his name on a census and assumed (a dangerous thing to do) that he was Henry and just known as Harry, because I knew Henry's were sometimes called Harry. But there he was on the GRO index and it's definitely him.

[Mythology]

The one that gave me a laugh was my "Catherine Elizabeth", as she is on her birth certificate. On the 1881 census she's "Kate" - no middle initial. In 1891 she's gone AWOL, but in 1901 she is again plain "Kate".

My "tree" is one of descendants not ancestors, and I don't generally take much interest in anything after about 1900, but if something's shoved in front of my face I'll take notice, so, when I got a message from my sister (whose interests overlap in places) that a contact of hers reckoned that there was a marriage later in 1901, I took a look at the GRO index.

She stood out like a sore thumb - surely only one of my girls could be so dim as to be both unaware of having a middle name and uncertain what her "real" name was, so gave her name as "Kate Catherine"! :D

A Marylebone ref, so that was handy - looked it up at the LMA, sure enough, same address as on the census, correct father, identifiable sister who helpfully signed with both forenames as witness, no doubt at all, this was my girl.

[Karen Newman]

When I first started out, one of my great-grandmother's proved a nightmare over her name.

Caroline on the 1881, Emily Caroline on her marriage cert (I know it is her as the groom has an unusual surname and everything else fits. The person who filled out the cert must have been at the sherry as he has noted her with her father's names in the bit where she put her cross!) and her birth is Emma Caroline!

I thought I was going mad!

[Davran]

One branch of my family went in for 'pet' names. So my mother's Great Aunt Polly was Mary Anne Emma, whose daughter Elizabeth was known as 'Libben'. Mostly they filled in the census forms correctly, but Elizabeth did appear in 1901 as 'Libben'. When I was originally looking for her I wasn't that experienced and it didn't occur to me to look for her under that name!

On the other side, my gtgrandmother Maria Elizabeth was always known as Elizabeth and her tombstone says Elizabeth Maria, though the marriage cert says Maria Elizabeth. I have yet to find her birth despite intensive searching. |banghead|

I suppose it wouldn't be half such fun if it was all easy, but it would be nice to get there in the end!

[jennepape]

Hi,

I'm sure it's no help at all, but I had 3 Great Aunts, known as Tish, Bar and Keg, whose real names were Agnes Patricia Margaret, Barbara and (most bizarrely of all...) Elizabeth Ursula. So without inside knowledge (knowing them), we'd have had no hope at all!

Almost all of the men in my husband's family are known by their middle name, which is all very well, but makes it difficult to write them cheques - the banks these days will only accept cheques made out to the real first name, not their common name...

Good luck though,

Jenne
(I guess I'm another one - my real name is Jennifer)