This is a bit long-winded, so please bear with me...
Family lore has it that the parents of my paternal grandmother Betsy Norwood were William Norwood and Elizabeth Dobbs. Elizabeth was his second wife. No records for any of them had been located so I though it was time to do some more research.
Betsy Norwood was born and lived in Elsham, Lincs (in the Glanford Brigg registration district). In looking at the Elsham PRs available online I soon found a number of records for two sets of Dobbs children: Martha (1832), George (1838), Jane (1841) and Elizabeth (1846) born to John and Sarah, and Mary (1861), Alfred (1863) and John (1865) born to William and Mary.
I believe that William is actually the first child of John and Sarah, hence his children are the next generation. William was born in 1830 (derived from his age in the 1891 census), and other information strongly suggests this connection even though there is no PR for him.
For John and Sarah, all the children have the parent name Dobbs in the PRs, except for Jane where the parent name is "Norwood(Dobbs)". All are registered in the GRO (except Martha who pre-dates the GRO) as Norwood, Dobbs is not mentioned.
For William and Mary, Alfred and John have the parent name Dobbs in the PRs, but Jane has "Norwood alias Dobbs". All of them are registered in the GRO as Norwood, Dobbs is not mentioned.
Mary died in 1868, and William "married" his second "wife" Elizabeth and had more children: Alma (1885), Betsy (1887), Mary (1889) and William (1894) (confirmed by the 1891 census and GRO records). The PRs for this period are not available online so I can't check them, but the GRO birth records are all for Norwood, except for Betsy, my grandmother, who I eventually found registered as Betsy Norwood Dobbs. Success!
I've found no marriage records for John/Sarah, William/Mary or William/Elizabeth.
So, to go back to the original family lore, Betsy Norwood turns out to be Betsy Norwood Dobbs, and William Norwood was baptised William Dobbs although the birth registered as William Norwood. It seems therefore unlikely that Elizabeth was a Dobbs, but identification is work in progress.
Can someone explain this Norwood/Dobbs duality and why it stretches across three generations. Is this a story of illegitimacy? Can anyone help me to make sense of this?
One explanation that occurs to me is that John Dobbs (the first father in the above) was a Norwood descendant, but he (or one of his ancestors) was illegitimate, and the Church knew this and insisted that baptisms be registered in the name of the mother (Dobbs). From then on, even though he thought of himself as a Norwood and called himself Norwood, when it came to baptisms, the Church still used the name Dobbs, or if it felt more consiliatory, some combination of Norwood and Dobbs (as in the two examples - but, maybe significantly, only for females). Hence the Dobbs name would automatically get passed to the next generation. Perhaps the only way for the Dobbs name to get left behind would have been to move parish so the Church would be none the wiser. My grandmother seems to be an anomaly - the only example where, for some unknown reason, the Dobbs name is used in the GRO.
Is this plausible?
Your thoughts would be most welcome.
Family lore has it that the parents of my paternal grandmother Betsy Norwood were William Norwood and Elizabeth Dobbs. Elizabeth was his second wife. No records for any of them had been located so I though it was time to do some more research.
Betsy Norwood was born and lived in Elsham, Lincs (in the Glanford Brigg registration district). In looking at the Elsham PRs available online I soon found a number of records for two sets of Dobbs children: Martha (1832), George (1838), Jane (1841) and Elizabeth (1846) born to John and Sarah, and Mary (1861), Alfred (1863) and John (1865) born to William and Mary.
I believe that William is actually the first child of John and Sarah, hence his children are the next generation. William was born in 1830 (derived from his age in the 1891 census), and other information strongly suggests this connection even though there is no PR for him.
For John and Sarah, all the children have the parent name Dobbs in the PRs, except for Jane where the parent name is "Norwood(Dobbs)". All are registered in the GRO (except Martha who pre-dates the GRO) as Norwood, Dobbs is not mentioned.
For William and Mary, Alfred and John have the parent name Dobbs in the PRs, but Jane has "Norwood alias Dobbs". All of them are registered in the GRO as Norwood, Dobbs is not mentioned.
Mary died in 1868, and William "married" his second "wife" Elizabeth and had more children: Alma (1885), Betsy (1887), Mary (1889) and William (1894) (confirmed by the 1891 census and GRO records). The PRs for this period are not available online so I can't check them, but the GRO birth records are all for Norwood, except for Betsy, my grandmother, who I eventually found registered as Betsy Norwood Dobbs. Success!
I've found no marriage records for John/Sarah, William/Mary or William/Elizabeth.
So, to go back to the original family lore, Betsy Norwood turns out to be Betsy Norwood Dobbs, and William Norwood was baptised William Dobbs although the birth registered as William Norwood. It seems therefore unlikely that Elizabeth was a Dobbs, but identification is work in progress.
Can someone explain this Norwood/Dobbs duality and why it stretches across three generations. Is this a story of illegitimacy? Can anyone help me to make sense of this?
One explanation that occurs to me is that John Dobbs (the first father in the above) was a Norwood descendant, but he (or one of his ancestors) was illegitimate, and the Church knew this and insisted that baptisms be registered in the name of the mother (Dobbs). From then on, even though he thought of himself as a Norwood and called himself Norwood, when it came to baptisms, the Church still used the name Dobbs, or if it felt more consiliatory, some combination of Norwood and Dobbs (as in the two examples - but, maybe significantly, only for females). Hence the Dobbs name would automatically get passed to the next generation. Perhaps the only way for the Dobbs name to get left behind would have been to move parish so the Church would be none the wiser. My grandmother seems to be an anomaly - the only example where, for some unknown reason, the Dobbs name is used in the GRO.
Is this plausible?
Your thoughts would be most welcome.
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