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  • Dorsant

    A person of interest, Rachael Nelson Approx 1848 and married in Liverpool (Synagogue) 1875 to Morris Phillips, has several children. They are registered with Nelson as mother's maiden name. The final child, Rosa (b1887 Nottingham) is registered with Dorsant as maiden name.

    I accept the possibility that Morris's first wife died and then he married another Rachael. However the name Dorsant appears to be so rare as to make that unlikely by itself. I think that in 2014 there were only eight Dorsants in existence. There are a few historically but almost all in Canada and the US.

    Trying to think outside the proverbial box I wonder if Dorsant means something - like a gerund in French. The only other point is that Rachael was illiterate. Any suggestions, anyone?

    ps I intend to cross post

  • #2
    Squiddley

    We did some extensive research on a Jewish family on this forum and one thing we noticed was that the mother's maiden name varied every time even though it was the same husband and wife. This was down to the cultural misunderstanding of what maiden name means. To a Jewish person it is a mystifying concept. Who registered the birth and gave Dorsant as the maiden name? Was it the father? If so, Dorsant may have been his mother's maiden name.

    OC

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Squiddley1957 View Post
      A person of interest, Rachael Nelson Approx 1848 and married in Liverpool (Synagogue) 1875 to Morris Phillips, has several children. They are registered with Nelson as mother's maiden name. The final child, Rosa (b1887 Nottingham) is registered with Dorsant as maiden name.

      I accept the possibility that Morris's first wife died and then he married another Rachael. However the name Dorsant appears to be so rare as to make that unlikely by itself. I think that in 2014 there were only eight Dorsants in existence. There are a few historically but almost all in Canada and the US.

      Trying to think outside the proverbial box I wonder if Dorsant means something - like a gerund in French. The only other point is that Rachael was illiterate. Any suggestions, anyone?

      ps I intend to cross post
      It is possible that Dorsant is a wrong spelling of whatever name was said at the time - bearing in mind that someone else wrote down what words the informant spoke, in whatever accent they had.

      Margaret

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      • #4
        Morris Phillips' mother's maiden name was Hart. I am trying to imagine someone saying Nelson but with a heavy cold!

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        • #5
          Have you actually got a copy of the birth cert, or is this using the gro indexes? They have horribly mistranscribed some maiden names in my tree, mainly "groves" in the index as: "grooch" and "growen". I'd suggest getting a copy if you haven't already.

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          • #6
            I've got the certificate. It does say Dorsant. I've convinced myself that Nelson can sound like Dorsant if you've got a heavy cold. Try it....

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            • #7
              Did you get your copy of the certificate from the GRO, or from the office of the relevant local registrar? I believe the local office send quarterly returns of registered events to the GRO. I have heard of people discovering variations of names, occupations etc when getting copies of the same event from both the GRO and the district office. if you got your cert via the GRO, then perhaps you could contact the Nottingham office, explain your dilemma and ask them if the details match with the name on their records. I think they should be able to answer "yes" or "no" - if "No", then you may decide to order a second cert from that source!
              It is always possible that when copying out details of events, names get transposed between two records. It certainly happened in PR if the incumbent entered up a whole batch of past bps, rather than recording each one individually as it happened.

              Jay
              Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 16-11-17, 12:33.
              Janet in Yorkshire



              Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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              • #8
                I am a great believer in the power of a heavy head cold,,/speech impediment/cloth eared registrar or parish clerk in changing a common surname into some weird unknown name, so Nelson into Dorsant is no big leap to me. I can also see how a carelessly or floridly written NELSON could be transcribed as Dorsant by someone not familiar with such writing, the outline of the two words is the same.

                I have three copies of the same marriage, from three different sources (church register, GRO, local R0). They differ in almost every detail and only the date and place of marriage are the same. Father's first names have transposed and their occupations, bride and groom's ages are wrong, their home addresses have been mistranscribed etc.

                OC

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