Genealogy Chat

Hi All, Here's one that perhap's hopefully someone can add some light too. Seeing Lesley from Cumbria message has prompted me into this message. No doubt there's quite a few of us who have a similiar problem and wonder if anyone has an explanation to it. ....... Where or how the origination of a single surname becomes a double barrelled name. My family line contains the name of Gottleib / Gottleib Wentzell. The years covering date from c1790 (earliest date that I have in my line) and the Gottleib seems to gradually be dropped after the 1850's. In those days for instance, were partner's names combined after marriage?,... were both the names used if the Mother / Father were not married?. All answer's, comment's gratefully received. J.C

John I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. I know of people who hyphenated both surnames when they got married as the bride's first name and husband's surname together didn't sound right. There are also cases where people assumed a different surname or combined surnames when there was an inheritance. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who went on Scott's last Antarctic expedition, was Apsley Cherry until the Garrard relatives died out and his father inherited the property and added the surname. Helen

Hi John Don't know if this helps but I have several cases of two surnames being used when a child was illegitimate, ie the mother giving the child the father's surname as a second christian name. Sometimes the child grows up and uses either or both surnames (not always consistently of course) and when two surnames are used they often become phased out in subsequent generations. David

I think we need to be very careful when we make assumptions that names were double barrelled. The fact that the wife's surname was used as a middle name didn't mean the name was double barrelled. My mother in law says her mothers name was Janet Mackenzie Houston-Bayne. Janet's father was James Houston Bayne who is transcribed on the 1891 census as James Houstonbayne. He was a "Commission Agent" so we're not talking about illiteracy in this case. All of his eight children were registered as Bayne, two of them with Houston as a penultimate name - but not Janet! I would suggest (as I don my flameproof overalls) that the double-barrelling of names arose out of some sort of vanity as, so often, the second part was usually a common name eg Armstrong-Jones, Fleetwood-Smith, Tucker-Brown etc

My husband, Benjamin Lewitt , was given his mother's maiden surname, Kappes, as his middle name as there were no other males to carry on her family name. In other paricular branch of my tree that also tended to be a family tradition. The names were not hyphenated, just the child's middle name. Judy

My "Double Barrel" came from my mother's second marriage. My father was Pearce and died in 1961, my mother married Smith in 1965. My sister and I were asked which name we wanted and we decided on both. It gave no problems until I tried to register a birth in Germany with the British Consulate. I had to make a Statutory Declaration in front of my C.O. about my name and have my Birth Certificate endorsed on the reverse before I could register my daughter'e birth. Paul

Hi to one and all, Thanks for your suggestions / comments. In my case, the Gottleib bit, up to yet in my findings has only been, or seem's to have been, associated with the first son being born in that marriage ... the middle name of Gottleib, ..... I may be wrong , but could this have been a traditional thing back then ... carrying on with the G. bit....... Also which partner would be named first in double names?, ... bride or groom / male or female? Many Thanks Again, J.C

I think the last name would be the "proper" name and the one before it was the imported one. In the case of the Tollemache-Tollemaches of course, it was a case of cousins marrying, so no one could be sure which was the first one. http://www.zip.*com.au/~lnbdds/home/lyonelthesecond.htm