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Beware of relying on family sources (even close)!

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  • Beware of relying on family sources (even close)!

    I have just had to eat humble pie.

    I was playing on the Cheshire BMD site, having spotted that my cousin's marriage record must be there now. I summoned up the marriage record, and there it was - but her husband's middle name didn't match the name I had noted. I had a quick check, and my record appeared to have come from her father's research, so had to be OK.

    No.

    I reported the supposed error to the webmaster, who forwarded it to Cheshire BMD. They checked and came back very promptly to say that the name did look like what they had given on the site. So I emailed my cousin, who emailed back to say that the name on the site was correct.

    The name I had recorded was similar, but not correct. With hindsight, I suspect it's one of those things where you type what you're thinking about, because the wrong name is spelled the same way as a place with links to our family. I had got the wrong name from print-out my uncle sent to my mother for her to fill in the info about our part of the family. I have separate copy, which I think also came from him, which has the correct name - but I hadn't looked at that because I already "knew" what the name was.

    Oh dear!

    Christine
    Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

  • #2
    ChristineThere's a saying that you need to have 3 separate instances of a fact before you accept it. Of course in family history lots of "facts" are just mistakes that are repeated so often people assume they are right. Even original sources are often wrong!I'm also aware, as I go through my paper records that I have often misrecorded a spelling or got the date slightly wrong, so I just accept that to err is human.On the other hand - I found my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's marriage in 1991 in the indexes with her surname changed from Pearce to Searce! No idea how that occurred - P doesn't look like S and they aren't adjacent keys on a keyboard.
    ~ with love from Little Nell~
    Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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    • #3
      My own marriage record is similarly garbled by GRO.

      Christine
      Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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      • #4
        In the listing for a marriage for my BM she is listed ad John but the name was Joan, chose but it cost me money to prove 2 men did not get married
        Sheila
        I think, therefore I am. Descarte

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        • #5
          Hi,

          I believe that if you have a living person whose GRO index record is wrong then it can be reported to the GRO and changed - but they only issue the changes to the supported 'host sites' which are (I think)
          Birmingham Central Librray, City Librry Manchester, Bridgend Library, Plymouth Library, Westminster Archives, London Metrop. Archives and the British Library.

          Unfortunately any change wouldn't get notified to the likes of FreeBMD, Ancestry, FindmyPast, etc but at least the GRO would have the correct details.

          I think you have to go to the GRO site and use the feedback option, write them a letter or email at
          certificate.services@ips.gsi.gov.uk

          I believe that they will only look at doing this for living people - not historic records.

          Shezzy

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          • #6
            I have even found an error in our Family Bible. My great aunt was christened Barbara Ann, and is recorded in the baptisms in the Bible as such. However when she got married she was entered in the Bible as Barbara Ann Irene. No idea where that one came from, but I remeber my Dad saying he diddn't know why she didn't use Irene having seen the Bible.

            The person who entered it should have known better as it was her mother!!
            Barbara

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            • #7
              Maybe her mother wanted to call her Irene but was vetoed by other family members, and got her revenge in the Bible!
              ~ with love from Little Nell~
              Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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              • #8
                My mother was registered with one middle name, but baptised with another.

                Christine
                Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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                • #9
                  We know about those errors as well, we were given info by a family member about his particular branch of our family, and he spelled the name of a male Leslie as "Lesley" then had "him" marrying a lady named Joan and they had a daughter whose names was spelled Leslie, so there we were, we thought we had female marrying a female with a male child, and we did not like to ask if the child was born by IVF or with a surrogate mother, but when we did all our own proofing we found the error in the spelling of the name Leslie, used in two places, and finally the family member who gave us the info admitted he did not know that the name Leslie/Lesley was spelled differently normally, for males and females, and had just spelled it all out just as he heard it many years ago from a grandmother. But we finally got it together, a male Leslei married Joan and they had a female child Lesley.

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                  • #10
                    my gt gran was born Susanna Eleanor, but was buried an 'Ellen'. seems she was known as Ellen rather than Susanna.. but it did confuse me for a while! (wasn't until I found her burial record that enabled me to get her death cert) how weird is that!
                    Julie
                    They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

                    .......I find dead people

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                    • #11
                      hi
                      I learnt fairly early on not to trust anything my real mother has told me she even argued over her mothers maiden name and rang her sister to confirm she was right only to be told no I was. SHe did not argue so much when I informed her her brothers name was not what she gave me either LOL


                      Laura

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