Genealogy Chat

nudge for Val

When going through old PRs I have occasionally seen an amended name. I think the rule has always been that a child who is born illegitimate, but whose parents subsequently marry, AS LONG AS THEY WERE BOTH free to marry at the time of that child's birth, can be legitimised. This seems to have been done, pre-registration, by a note in the Parish Register, sometimes giving the date of the marriage, but not always. I am talking 1800s here, sometimes late 1700s.

Births can be re-registered if the parents subsequently marry, and this should be indicated in the index. I doubt whether many people did this 150 years ago; almost certainly they would have simply used their chosen name.

There's info about Deed Polls on The National Archives website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/name/ nell

my dad was born 1948 his name being lockett the same as his mother in 1957 he took on his step father name hanley and it tells me this on his birth cert

Not in England, and certainly not in 19th century England. There is an interesting SOG leaflet regarding surnames, which also discusses change of name: http://www.sog.org.uk/leaflets/surnames.html "Changes of name In England anybody may change his or her name without any formality whatsoever. The change may be effected by merely assuming the new name, though it is advisable to have some proof that one has assumed the new name. This is generally provided by deed-poll or by Royal Licence, and occasionally has been done by private Act of Parliament. In all these cases the name has been changed by voluntary assumption and not by these documents, which are only evidence of the assumption. The great majority of changes of surname have thus probably gone unrecorded but if some record has been made a reference may be found in W P W Phillimore & E A Fry, An index to change of names 1760-1901 (1905, reprinted 1968). Deeds poll of change of name were sometimes (though not always) enrolled in Chancery after 1851 and from 1903 in the Supreme Court of Judicature. Those enrolled since 1914 have been published in the London Gazette. These records may be found at the Public Record Office, Kew." Therefore, unless your ancestor was rich & famous, i.e. had assets or was due an inheritence, etc, then I doubt very much that there would be any official record of the name change.

Hi Maurice, I'm not sure if this is of any help to you as I was born in Western Australia in 1972, but..... I was born out of wedlock and took on my Mum's maiden name. (Even though she knew who my father was, it says unknown on my birth cert). When she married a few years later I took on my step-father's name. My name was changed according to the Change of Names Regulation Act. I have a copy of that document. It's called a "License to Change Name". Also, my birth certificate has a stamp on the side of it stating that Kylie Raelene Gaden was authorised to use the name Kylie Raelene Forsyth as per licence blah blah from this date blah blah blah........ and so on. Hope this helps in some way! Cheers, Kylie

Maurice I don't know the answer but I'd be interested in finding out too. Have discovered today that my ggrandfather was born out of wedlock and was registered under his mother's name, yet he married with his father's name, his children have the same surname and he died with that name too. I'm not sure whether the name change had to be made official back then. There was a thread about this a few days ago and if I can find it, I'll nudge it up Lou

If a child is born "out of wedlock" and the mother registers the birth using her own surname, then two years later marries the father of the child , the child then normally takes the surname of the father. The birth certificate still shows the mothers maiden name. So when the child is older what records would/could exist showing the name change? How are they accessed? I am hearing that this is a very common problem, is there an answer? Regards Maurice