Genealogy Chat

I have my Grandmother and 2 of her siblings birth certs, also Grandparents marriage cert, on every one the Surname is given as Maher.. On census it also says Maher and that Greatgrandfather came from Cork Ireland, , However, on looking up marriage of Great Grandparents i find Great Grandfather's name is spelt MARR on both freebmd and GRO(.Which i have always taken as being gospel.) Who do i believe?? I know it is probably because Great Grandfather couldnt spell his name or the accent was misunderstood in London where they married. But how come he could spell it correctly on registering his children. Wouldnt you point out if your Surname was incorrect on your marriage cert? Or did they decide that Maher sounded better than Marr? Where do i go from here in tracing any further back? Maureen

Spelling of names can vary a lot. i have several people with different versions in parish registers, censuses and certificates. I usually adopt the most common or recent spelling for my tree and remember to search on variants. The index on GRO may be exactly what was written on the certificate, or just what the indexer THOUGHT it said. Handwriting on certificates can be just as illegible as on census entries. It doesn't mean that the GRO are wrong or that the census entries are wrong. They are just different. [NB Freebmd transcribes from the GRO index, so if the index says Marr that is what will be transcribed]

Quite probably your G Grandparents couldn't read so the name would be spelled however the registrar/enumetator decided to spell it. There wasn't really a right or wrong way to spell names, you just have to be aware of the possible variations when searching for information. You should see how many ways my ancestors spelled Whiffen! When you search Parish Records you see a name written one way for several years, then the new vicar comes along and decides on a new variation. I try and put all the variants in my tree, more chance of matching up with someone on GR.

As for pointing out errors on certificates, how many people getting married bother to check? I did, because I am a trained librarian and obsessive about accuracy (as lots of family historians are) BUT I expect lots of people don't bother. I've got a marriage cert in my family where the groom (highly educated man)'s name is spelled wrongly although he signed correctly immediately underneath it! Before the age of terrorism and worries about identity theft and security, a lot of people wouldn't have worried about mistakes. nell

I think there was a great reluctance on the part of people to correct 'their betters' (anyone who had a sitting-down job, usually). And, it simply didnt matter a hoot in those days - you had the bit of paper, YOU knew who it was supposed to be, what did it matter how it was spelled? I always enter the spelling 'as found' on here, in the hope that this will attract someone else on the Site, who only knows of that particular spelling. OC

To give you an idea of name variants I have: Maling, Mealing, Mealins, Melins, Mellins, Malins Higho, Hyho, Hegho Chouns, Chown, Choundes, Chowns, Chownes Mathews, Matthews Smoothy, Smoothey Grey/Gray Purvey/Pervey/Purvy Emms, Emmes, Hems, Ems Robins, Robbins Denison, Dennison Simons, Simmons, Symonds Utting, Utten

Thanks everyone. Sounds silly i know, but if my name was incorrectly spelt on my marriage cert i would wonder if i was married (think i might have a look - i can only hope!!) I have sent for the marriage certof G. Grandparents, will be interesting to see how he signed his name - probably with an X Maureen

As for having 'his bettters' Poor chap didnt have much chance of avoiding them - he was a scavenger in a sewerage works!! Maureen

Oh Maureen! Poor chap! But there you go, then...! Um, don't want to add further to your burden, but you do already know that the name MAHER is probably a corruption of Mager, Magher, Major, don't you? OC

Old Crone (I feel really rude typing that!!) No i didnt know about the variations - not sure i want to either!! As he came from Ireland and Maher seems as bad as Smith (my single name) in tracing over there, i get the feeling i am not going to get much further back anyway (this chap was born c 1824) died in a workhouse aged 54 in London.You can just imagine what a life he lead cant you? Maureen

Just to confuse everyone a little bit more - my husbands family are what sounds like Mahers - except they spell it Meagher! L

Certainly dont ignore it because of a spelling error. I have been searching for ages for an ancestor of my hubbys. His name was Sharratt. He never moved on any census. I have now found his death cert, it was on the index under Sherratt. It's certainly the correct one as the informant was his son Reuben. Very few Reuben Sharratt's or Sherratt's in Staffordshire. Margaret

I've had a Lidyard clear as anything on the census image, indexed by Ancestry as Ledyard. The worst indexing error I found, while FreeBMD was still in beta, was a whole year of death index page images indexed by Ancestry as marriages (well you get the picture, it was some time ago and I did send them an error report). As others have said, lateral thinking on the spelling front is often needed.

My grandfather went one better and he could read and write. On his marriage cert it says his name is Alfred Gordon Gibson. In fact it was Arthur Gibson. There is a note at the side written and signed in front of witnesses, a month later, stating that Alfred G Gibson is in fact Arthur Gibson. I wonder how they managed that muck up!