Choice of Surname?

[greybird]

Can anyone tell me why, on IGI, some entries are shown with two surnames, e.g. JOE SMITH OR BLOGGS (not an actual example!)?

Checking the name through the batch numbers brings up a whole list of people with the same alternatives.

[Uncle John]

Are they "extracted" or "submitted" entries? Extracted entries record what was written in the original register etc. (subject to transcription errors). Submitted entries record what a particular LDS Church member thinks they know about the person.

[greybird]

hello Uncle John. Extracted - I have seen it several times, but the one that concerns me at the moment is JOHN COLES OR NEWBURY, b1790 Wiltshire

[Olde Crone Holden]

greybird

In my experience, it is usually the Vicar's sniffy way of casting doubt on the parents marriage, or indicates a child born illegitimate, who used his mother's name and the name of a stepfather, perhaps.

OC

[greybird]

Yes, I had wondered if that was the case, but would that "effect" last through several generations? Using the batch no it brings up 20 entries going back more than 100 years.
Newbury is spelt in several different ways

[Oakum Picker]

I was about to say the same OC & looking at the particular example, it appears to stem from a possible civil marriage during the Commonwealth.

[greybird]

Oh that's interesting, would never have occurred to me. Presumably the people themselves would have used one name or the other - would they have to declare the other one when having their children baptised?

[Oakum Picker]

Sorry, my mistake I missed the marriage in 1660 so the one before that was prior to the Commonwealth. Perhaps it was a Fleet marriage. I'd have to have a look at the register.

[greybird]

Sorry, this is provoking more questions! What's a Fleet marriage?

[Oakum Picker]

This will explain it.

Fleet Marriage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[greybird]

Thank you!

[Harrys mum]

I have found one extracted entry with tow surnames as well. It is in both the PR and BT as that.

It was the son's baptism where the parents were not married. The father refused to marry and the mother wanted to marry him. She died "of a broken heart" one year later. Also in the PR. They were wealthy Lancashire families and I wondered if the Vicar and even the Bishop wrote what they were told.

[Penelope]

Redacted

[Olde Crone Holden]

Penelope

I agree with that and would point out that Vicars, especially country Vicars, seemed to have extremely long memories, lol, taking the alias names a hundred years forward or more.

I got in a big pickle with one of my 3 x GGFs who had been baptised with one name but lived with another name all his life.

When I eventually sorted it out (and it was the odd middle name of one of his children which brought it all together - investigate those weird middle names, folks!) it turned out that his GREAT GRANDPARENTS married in a Commonwealth marriage.

Apparently in the area they married, the old Vicar was also performing secret C of E marriages. He kept a register and this was trotted out once everything went back to normal. My couple had either declined, or just not bothered, with the secret church bit and this was neither forgiven nor forgotten for over 150 years!

OC

[Penelope]

OC - do we know if people were retrospectively 'legitimised'? I was wondering about this t'other day but can't seem to find any info yet..? Strikes me as intriguing as my commonwealth clergyman was succeeded by relative (son in law, I think but I forget) - how awkward would that be, saying all your relative's baptisms and marriages were invalid? But I don't recall seeing any records of marriages being re-performed in say the late 1660s. Yet it must have gone on?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Penelope

I think the Church certainly "legitimised" the marriages retrospectively IF the couple had also gone through a secret C of E ceremony.

I have seen registers for the period which include marriages. These MAY be civil marriages I suppose, but I doubt it, there is nothing to say they were but of course the Church could be haughtily ignoring that little episode, whilst grudgingly allowing the legality of civil marriage. The marriage register may have been compiled at a later date, but the one I have seen looks "genuine" in that the handwriting, depth of ink etc varies as you would expect in a normal register.(Written over months/years in other words, not copied up in a couple of days)

It does seem to depend on individual Vicars and their own feelings about things. Some were kinder than others and accepted that civil marriages were inevitable and hardly the fault of the couple - perhaps there was no Vicar willing to perform a secret religious marriage? This was punishable by death, I understand!

Also - it would be rather a good opportunity to settle a few scores. If Joe Bloggs was insolent to the Vicar during the interregnum and told him to **** off when he suggested a secret religious marriage......what better revenge than to delicately suggest for the next hundred years that he and his descendants were illegitimate!

OC

[Olde Crone Holden]

Another point, Penelope and one that I am sure you already know, but I'll repeat it here for the benefit of those who don't.

When the monarchy was deposed and the civil authorities took over, they needed men to perform and record life events. These men were called, most confusingly, Parish Registers!

As almost the only literate members of the community were deposed Clergymen, they were often recruited for the job, ironically. I suspect that at least SOME of these clergymen performed the civil ceremony with their fingers crossed behind their backs and considered later that these marriages were also valid in the eyes of God, as they, God's emissary, had performed them.

I have seen in a semi-private collection of family papers, a reference to a "porch door" civil wedding during the interregnum. From memory, it said something like "and blessed and sancitified later that day by the same Father Blah Blah".

I take this to mean that Father X performed the civil marriage and later that day performed a religious marriage in secrecy. Belt and braces!

OC

[greybird]

I am learning so much! Thank you all. We forget how strongly people felt about these things then. If the clergyman was the only literate person present at the wedding, might it be that he was writing the entry in the register with both names without the knowledge of the people concerned? I just can't see how they maintained both names in their day to day lives.

I don't know if this John Coles (or Newbury!) is the right one for me, he is one of several possibilities - some nice people have been helping me on another thread - but if he is, it opens up a lot of interesting possibilities.

[Sue from Southend]

What an interesting thread! I shall book mark it just incase I ever get back that far! Thanks to OC, Penelope and Oakum Picker for sharing your knowledge