Genealogy Chat

hi all,
can someone please tell me why a birth would be registered the same day twice in different names when i know the parents were married?

i have an ancestor born 1917 registerd as lilian M gladdon then in same register vol page she is lilian M Edgeller-gladdon mothers maiden name foster which is right and father is edgeller-gladdon i know there have been ancestors sometimes using both surnames in previous generations but why would you use it later on especially as the parents married in 1913 4yrs before lilians birth?
Lilian had a sister muriel but i have not found her yet so dont know if she is registerd twice this branch is prooving a bit of a mystery.
thanks
elaine

where did this happen Elaine?

hi ann ,
this happened in marylebone london and i have just found lilians sister muriel as being registerd twice also
why oh why ?
elaine

She's not registered twice - she's registered once, but there's two index entries for this double-barreled name. Note there are 6 index entries for the 5 certificates on this page.

hi mgnv,

thanks for that but i dont know why they would put in two entries when the mothers maiden name was foster??
i only found 4 of the entries is the other entry a edgeller-gladdon?
thanks for help
elaine

Sorry for delay - had to do shopping as it's supposed to rain later this afternoon.

Here's FreeBMD:
Births Jun 1917 (>99%)
Dyter John A Topley Marylebone 1a 730
Edgeller-Gladdon Lilian N Foster Marylebone 1a 730
Gladdon Lilian M Foster Marylebone 1a 730
Knox Gerard Knox Marylebone 1a 730
Perryman Eileen Perryman Marylebone 1a 730
Pocock Arthur F Pocock Marylebone 1a 730

Here's how Ancestry has your 2 entries:
Lilian M Edgeller-Gladden Apr May Jun 1917 Marylebone Greater London
Lilian M Gladdon Apr May Jun 1917 Marylebone Greater London

As you can tell from the image, and might guess from the fact that Ancestry and FreeBMD both make mistranscriptions, the EDD-EDG page is typed on a machine with worn or dirty keys.
[I've submitted corrections to both FreeBMD & Ancestry]

Here's another pair of examples:

Births Dec 1903 (>99%)
BATES Lily Elizabeth St. Geo H. Sq. 1a 411
DOUGLAS-HOME Alexander F St.G.H.Sq. 1a 411
HERON-MAXWELL Patrick Archibald St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
HODGSON Gordon George St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
Home Alexander F St.Geo.H.Sq 1a 411
Maxwell Patrick Archibald St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
Newport Francis Courtenay St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
Pritchard Athol Thomas St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
Pugh Gladys Mary St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
Rogers Richard Sweett St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
Smith Violet St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411
Stone Charles Cyril St. Geo. H. Sq. 1a 411

hi mgnv,

thanks for your reply.

i might be a bit daft here but i dont understand why it is indexed twice is it purely because for whatever reason they used a double barrelled name?

is she gladdon or edgelller - gladdon ?
why would you put in both ?
elaine

I think it could be because sometimes people used the hyphen to connect the names and sometimes didn't. I know when I've looked for certain ancestors (for instance, a married-in relation called Anne Scott Pask) I've had huge problems finding them on the census.

Sometimes they can be down as Anne Scott-Pask, Anne S Pask or Anne Pask, depending on what the enumerator put and it seems to be the same with BMDs. I think if the registrar wasn't sure which bit was the surname they would put a double-entry - possibly to make it easier to find them later on if necessary?

Interestingly, I never found a problem with my great-grandmother Lucy Castledine Branston. All through her life it appears that Castledine (her mother's maiden name) was used as if it was any other middle name, so on her gravestone it says something like "In memory of Samuel Rowland and also of his wife Lucy Castledine" so, unless you knew it was her middle name, it could look really puzzling.

Is she Gladdon or Edgeller-Gladdon? That's exactly the problem and the reason for 2 index entries.

Alec Douglas-Home lost his seat as an MP when his father died and he became Lord Home and was, as they say, raised to the peerage. When invited to be PM, he renounced his peerage and won a by-election as Sir Alec Douglas-Home. (following a knighthood a couple of years earlier). Following his retirement as an MP, he was given a life peerage and again became Lord Home.
So what is his surname?

Check your own b.cert - it doesn't explicitly say what your surname is.
It just says - col 2 "Name, if any" and all that's entered there is Elaine or whatever, (which can be amended by col 10 "Name entered after registration".
Col 4 "Name and surname of father might say John Smith or be left blank
Col 5 "Name, surname and maiden surname of mother" might say Mary Smith formerly Jones.
In that case, the kid's surname would usually be Smith.
If the mother's down as just Mary Jones, and the father's name is down as John Smith, then either Smith or Jones might be used, and the index would have both. Two of my g grans used the Smith option, but one of their half-brothers used the Jones option until his dad wed my gg gran and he became Jones Smith (as 2 names - in his case the subsequent marr of his parents legitimized his birth). Legally, you can call yourself whatever you want, so long as it's not done for fraudulent purposes.

hi all,

thanks very much i understand now this mystery goes way back it just seemed odd that future generations still seemed to be unsure of who they really are or perhaps they do after all its only a name just not very helpful if your trying to trace all these ancestors!
thanks again members are always so helpful on GR
elaine

Elaine

Just to add ................


I used to index scientific books and journals, and if we had an author with a double-barreled name ... we used to index under BOTH names.


This was to make sure that if someone was looking for that author, then they would find him/her, even if they only remembered the last name



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