Genealogy Chat

Hi Linda,

One of my ancestors married 4 times. On the first three certificates she stated she was a spinster when infact for weddings 2 and 3 she was a widow. On number 4 she did actually state widow.

Chris

Not every child is named after the father, there are numerous examples in the indexes, presumably where the mother is unmarried and names the child after herself....... and possibly marries later.....

Bob

have you tried looking for her on a census before she married to see if what she was called then, and what the household was like??



that's assuming of course that we are talking about pre-1911



sylvia

Her father may have died, her mother remarried, but she continued using her father's name.
However, to all intents and purposes, her stepfather was her father at the time of her marriage, as he had taken the place of her father.

What date are you talking about?

As Andrew said, she could be illegitimate, or as Glitter Baby said, there might be a mistake on the registration.

Another possibility is she may have named a step-father. If it is in the time of the censuses you could check by using her name and the father's surname in the keywords.

Ozi

Does this mean I will have to search both names in order to trace ancestors because if so it's highly unlikely I'll manage as all the names are very common ones?

I have one cert where the bride is shown as a spinster and the father has a different surname BUT now I have upgraded my membership on Ancestry and checked the marriage cert - she is actually a widow.

GRO made a mistake when they wrote out the copy

If the parents are unmarried then she may have taken her mothers surname, but used her fathers name on her marriage cert. It does happen, I've a couple of examples in my tree.

Andy

I have a marriage where the bride is a spinster but her fathers surname is different to hers. Can anyone throw any light on how this might be please?