Male Adkins

[robsnicta]

I have been trying to trace an ancestor that was christened in to the Atkins family with the name of Elam Libni at Newbottle Northamptonshire on the 7th April 1861.

In quarter 1 (jan-mar) of the same year there is a birth entry made in the Brackley parish record for a 'male Adkins'. Was it a practice or common for an illigitimate birth to be just recorded as either male or female with the given surname during that period?

Robsnicta

[janbooth]

According to the 1871 census of Newbottle (RG10/1468, folio 80, page 6), Elam Libni ATKINS was born c1861 at Kings Sutton, Northamptonshire and is shown as the son of Samuel & Mary Ann ATKINS. Samuel ATKINS married Mary Ann PECKOVER on 11 August 1856 at Newbottle (Northamptonshire Marriage Index). Samuel is shown as a bachelor of full age, of Kings Sutton, Labourer, father Samuel, Labourer and Mary Ann PECKOVER as a spinster of full age,of the parish, father Samuel, Labourer.

Kings Sutton does fall within the reg district of Brackley so the male ADKINS could be the registration for your Elam and that Samuel and Mary Ann had not yet decided what to name their child but had done so by the time of the census and obviously when he was baptised.

Janet

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