Record Office: Herts: Watford marriage 1885 (already largely solved)

[Christine in Herts]

I'm trying to track a middle name backwards for a friend. I found it as the middle name of the wife in this marriage. Using census info and plausible logic, I thought I had made quite a nice tree for her (though not re-finding that middle name)... but there are trees on Ancestry which look even more plausible and are incompatible with this one's later life, so I suspect that my tree must contain too much wishful thinking! The name is just common enough to give opportunities for confusion - and a lot of the men seem to be in the shoe-making / cordwainer / boot-maker trades. I thought that the actual marriage record might help to weed out any definite no-no branches...

m 1885q4 Watford. John William WIGGS & Elizabeth Hurworth HERBERT

In the censuses, she shows up as born in Bow, or thereabouts, sometime in the range 1863-67. There are three possible baptisms currently showing amongst the LMA records on Ancestry, but the most likely one (in my opinion) is the one that's already "claimed". I had hoped I might spot her banns - but I suspect she'd already moved out to Watford by that stage.

Speculation allows for that middle name to be an actual surname, with HERBERT assumed from a stepfather, but I didn't get anywhere with that.

In 1891, she and her husband and family are at 24 Queen's Road, Watford. I think that would be in the parish of St Mary's, the historical parish church of Watford. Ten years later, they're living in the north of Bushey, pretty much where the family still lives.

It's obviously not particularly urgent, but I'd be grateful if someone could have a look next time they're at the Records Office in Hertford: it's the other side of the county for me.

Christine

[Christine in Herts]

This is now much less important. My tree was wrong. There's more info on Ancestry - a transcription (it was at St Mary's, as I'd guessed), with ages, and father's names.

Not as much detail as there'd be on the actual register entry, but significantly more than I'd found before.

Christine

[Christine in Herts]

It would be useful to have the rest of the info, I think. Joseph is proving as elusive as Elizabeth, and I have no occupation for him to narrow down the search. I thought I'd found them in Sheerness, but it looks as if that Elizabeth H HERBERT's middle name was Hannah.

Christine