child name changes

[Carrie Meerten]

does anyone know or have any idea as to whether children of widowed mothers had their name changed when the mother remarried??? :confused:

I am searching the 1881, 1891 and 1901 census but cannot find the mother, hence thinking remarried, but cannot even find the children on the 1881 as they would only be 14 and 15 on the 1881.

[Peggy]

Hi,

I have 2 cases in my family in which a step-child took the surname of the mother's husband, informally, with no adoption. From that I'd guess that it happened in a lot of other cases.

Peggy

[Peter Goodey]

They might do, they might not. To some extent it depended on the age of the children at the time the second marriage occurred. The same applied if the 'marriage' was not legally registered.

[Guy Etchells]

Have you considered that at 14 & 15 they could be away from home working? Hence on the census they would appear in different households.
Cheers
Guy

[Colin Moretti]

Hello Meerten

My recollection is that when I was a young boy (not sooo long ago, well post ww2) it was usual for boys to retain their father's surname when the mother remarried, but girls would take the stepfather's surname.

Colin

[Carrie Meerten]

:) Thankyou everyone for your replies to my question.

The fact of the matter is that I still cannot find all three girls anywhere on the 1881 census !!! :(

On the 1871 census they were all living with their mother at her parents dwelling in St James parish. They were listed as granddaughter to head of household. The mother was listed as a widow. Their surname was spelt incorrect as Jure - transcription error !!!


Sarah Jewer, age 9, b Poole, Dorset. She married in 1885 so is listed on the 1891 and 1901 under her married name.
Betsey Jewer, age 5, b Poole, Dorset. (no other info on her).
Eliza Jewer, age 4, b Poole, Dorset. She married in 1885 also.

I have had enough of searching the 1881 census (I use the ancestry.co.uk site as you can view the original), I think I have covered all and any option I can think of, keyword, birth place/location, no surname, age etc etc.

|banghead|

[busyglen]

Mythology is right.....there are no set rules. Through some brilliant detective work by Aragina, I've just found out that my grandmother who to all intents and purposes was Blanche Naish, and her marriage cert agrees with that....actually was registered at birth as Blanche Cooper! She then reverts back to Naish at a later date. The whole family calls themselves Cooper at the time of the 1871 Census....why? Possibly they couldn't pay the rent at one lodging and moved away and called themselves something else to avoid been traced. Who knows? If only they could tell us now!

Glenys

[Mary Young]

Have you tried "Dewar" ?

[Carrie Meerten]

I have found I of the girls on the 1881 census, Eliza. Thankyou for your help to this point.

|woohoo|