Genealogy Chat

I am bemused by a marriage certificate from a Bethnal Green parish church in 1874. Both individuals were born in what is now Germany and had probably only recently arrived in England. The spouse is identified as Catherine Deal aged 19y with a father named Peter Deal yet she signs the register as Deill. The indexes have entries for both Deal and Deill. Was this the indexers trying to be helpful? The husband signs himself as Johan Frieiderich but his father is named as Henry Frederick. Were foreign names not simply transliterated?

Part of life's tapestry. There is no hard and fast answer to this sort of question. Basically anything goes. The official completing the entry writes down what he hears or is told. Not quite like it is today when you have to produce all sort of documentary evidence as to your identity.

Foreign names were frequently Anglicised, and you seem to have happened across a good example of this.

When you say the index has both names do you mean the Free BMD or Ancestry Transcript or have you looked at the actual index page?

Both Deal and Deill are on separate pages on the actual images, so I think whoever transcribed from the original entry wasn't sure which was the correct spelling so decided to index both spellings just to be on the safe side. There will only be one certificate.

Kath. x

It is the actual index, not just the transcript, which has both names. I think the confidence of the Victorians was so great that everything British must be best.