Genealogy Chat

Hi Jacqueline, know what you mean, I think these ancestors do these things to confuse us. I obtained my grandfathers birth certificate from our local Register Office, my mum gave me his details and so everything went smoothly. His name was Christopher GALLAGHER. A few weeks later, whilst looking at the BMD indexes, I idly looked for my grandads entry (as you do!). He wasn't there!! Checked a year either side just to be sure - still no joy. I ended up trawling through the 'G''s and eventually found him registered under GOLLAKER. I went back to the local Register Office to see what had happened and they checked their registers. Turns out that he WAS registered as a GOLLAKER, but because I had put GALLAGHER on my request application, the clerk read the surname as that!! Didn't make that much difference to me, as I was sure of my facts, and my mother and her siblings had all been registered in Gallagher. I dread to think if she had taken the name GOLLAKER as all her ancestors had been Gallagher - I would have been stuck before I started. PS. This family eluded me on the 1901 census until by some creative imagination, I found them listed as Pollicker!! Must have been a strong scouse accent in Manchester!! Such fun!! Best wishes Carol

Oh well done Jacqueline!! What a feeling of satisfaction you must have!! The harder they are to find the more elation you feel when you 'nail 'em'!! Victoria

Just thought I'd share with you all that I have found who I was looking for dispite the fact they were not where they should be. I could not find the name CHAPHAM on the death BMD Register pages, spent days checking and rechecking with no luck, then after a bit of a think I tried variations of the surname, and there she was under CLAPHAM. I have found all sorts of mistakes on the census records, but thought that the Registers would be correct. My next venture is to think of all variations of surname on my many 'missing' persons and see what I can find. Hope this may be of help. Jackie