Genealogy Chat

upon joining like in the welsh reginments there are a lot of jones's williams etc so they either used there middle names like my grand father who was with a lot of david williams 's so he is known as howard as he was during the war so under certain circumstances there may of been names the same or surnames where it was esier to use service numbers instead of names hope this was in some way helpful

Thanks Maggie
This sounds very complicated but has given me lots of ideas. Wouldn't it be easier if all our ancestors kept the same name but then perhaps it would not be quite as interesting trying to unravel all the little twists and turns.
Charlotte

When you are adopted as an 'older' child -you can change both names.
My dad did it, as did a friend at school.
In both cases it was the mother marrying /remarrying.
My grand daughter has a double barrelled surname (daughter didn't marry her father) consisting of her father's surname and my daughter's surname. Daughter is marrying a different man in August, so grand daughter can (if her dad gives permission) just have her 'new' father's surname. If her dad doesn't agree, or her 'new' dad isn't allowed to adopt her - she'll have a triple-barrelled surname!!!

maggie

Hi
Thanks for your responses, you have given me a few more ideas. I can understand name changes to avoid detection however these alias names are listed on service records so presumably the army knew that the soldiers used two names. Name changes due to re-marriage is definitely a possibility however in one of the cases I have seen Thomas Dolman became Leonard Bitten, so both names were changed. I also think derserters re-enlisting could be a possibility in some cases.
Anyway the search goes on, I will try Findmypast.
Thanks again
Charlotte

I have one where the father died and then the mother remarried when her son was just three years old,so for most of his life he was known by his step fathers surname of Brown. In those days there was no formal adoption process,so when he joined up, his records were in his birth name, but it said "formerly known as Brown"

Linda

Hi Charlotte, try here :

http://www.findmypast.com/MilitaryStartSearch.jsp#surname.
Scroll down to useful tips

If you are still having trouble finding certain WW1 military records, keep in mind names and date of birth may not always be recorded accurately.

Name
Aliases – men appear under the names they enlisted under and were known to the army. Many men signed up under an alias, for various reasons, such as:

pre-War regulars re-joining the army having previously deserted
rejected volunteers when volunteering again at a different recruiting centre
men who wanted not to be traced by family (e.g. parents) or others
men who simply wanted to leave behind their past and begin anew

I read a book recently about boy soldiers. A few of them joined up under a different name and a different age - usually to escape detection.

There must be other reasons though.

Jill

Does anyone know why some people are listed with an alias name and their proper name, I have found instances of this on a service record and in the CWCG lists of war casualties. I am trying to follow a family line where there is a story of a name change. So the presence of Aliases really interests me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you