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  • Am I missing something?

    I am helping a friend with her family history and its challenging to say the least. Henry Gregory born 1844 Sheffield. His history has been followed through the census returns. He married Ann/Annie. This was our first stumbling block because he married twice and they were both Ann/Annie. Ann Jarvis died and he then married Ann Heathcote(there are derivatives). Any way purchase of both marriage certificates and the birth certificate of one of Henry and Ann Heathcotes children established that Ann maiden name was Heathcote.

    This is where the fun starts. Pam wanted to follow the Heathcote line as part of her ongoing research and despite finding Ann in 1861 living in Rotherham with her parents and siblings - parents Thomas and Ann (both born in Derbyshire - Mugginton and Quarndon). We were not able to find a birth registration for Ann or Ann Marie (as shown one of the marriage certificates). We did find a birth registration for Ann's sister Agnes born 1859 in Rotherham and as there was only one Agnes Heathcote born during this time in Rotherham I advised Pam to order the certificate which she did. The maiden name of Agnes's mother came back as Fouke and all the other infomation matched so it looked as if we were looking at the correct family.

    We had found Ann in 1871 living and working as a servant and Ann's parents were tracked through the census returns. The only one I was struggling to find was Ann's parents and her older brother and sister on the 1851 census. A bit of dogged detective work found them right place and with all the names, dates and places of birth correct. The reason I couldn't find them was because the family had been transcribed as Hitchcock and I must confess it did look like Hitchcock but I have seen worse transcriptions.

    It should now be possible to find a Fouke/Heathcote marriage in either Yorkshire or Derbyshire c1848. There was not one to be found. The may of course not be married. But not wanting to give up on this one I dug around a bit more - there was a tree on ancestry which had Thomas, Ann with their two eldest children Sarah and William, dates correct, places of birth correct. The only significant difference was the Family surname was Hitchcock and there was a marriage shown in 1846 between Ann Fowke and Thomas Hitchcock in Derby. At first I did not give this tree much credence - we have all seen works of fiction, but then the 1851 census started ringing bells it matched with the data on the family tree. Further investigations also show a birth registration for Ann Maria Hitchcock in 1852 in Rotherham. There is a Thomas Hitchcock born right place right time on igi and is alive and on the 1841 census living with his family.

    The crux of the matter is why would the family name change between 1851 and 1859 (birth of Agnes).
    Last edited by Sherbertrose; 24-04-11, 10:01.

  • #2
    Most likely explanation is that Thomas could not read or write, and never saw the need to standardise the spelling of his name, being only concerned with how his name was pronounced - which could have been somewhere between the two spellings. Different clerks before and after 1851 then spelt the name differently on the official records and eventually this particular branch plumped for Heathcote as the "correct" spelling.
    Judith passed away in October 2018

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