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I have spent the last week rying to find out the maiden name of my Gt. Gt. Grandmother and have found zero clues whatsoever, so if anyone can help I'd be grateful.

I know she married Philip (Phillip) Burgess in Halling, Kent in around 1825 and had 12 children. I know they lived in Halling for all their lives too but thats as far as I can get.

Will a copy of any of the childrens birth certificate show mothers maiden name? I ask that as my Grandmothers birth cert. shows no details at all - not sure why but it doesn't even show her fathers name - just her's and the registrar.

I have checked on here and Ancestry and IGI and FMP! I realy do want to know who she was!

Thanks in advance

Debs

The birth certificate of any of her children born after 1837 (when registration began) will show the mother's maiden name. However registration wasn't compulsory until 1875 so the children's births may not have been registered at all.

If you have a birth certificate that doesn't show the parent's names then it is a "short" certificate which was issued at the time of registration and was given free so if the parent's were short of money they may have "made do" with this instead of buying the more complete certificate.

If you give the date and place of your grandmother's birth (from the "short" certificate) and also her name, I can look up the birth reference to enable you to buy the full certificate.
Kath. x

It sounds as if your Grandmothers birth cert was a shortened version of the original cert which as you say doesn't show very much at all. If any of of your Gt Gt Grandmother's children were born after 1837 then try getting a copy of the birth certificate and it should show you the parents.

Are you certain that they married in around 1825 as the only Phillip Burgess who comes up on the 1851 census living in Halling, Kent was born c,1830 so couldn't have married in 1825.

Kath. x

There doesn't appear to be a Philip Burgess in Halling in 1851. There is a James who has a gret number of Children. What was you GG Grandmother's first name?
Eileen

?????
1851 England Census
about Jane Burgess
Name: Jane Burgess
Age: 46
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1805
Relation: Wife
Spouse's Name: James
Gender: Female
Where born: East Malling, Kent, England

Civil Parish: Halling
County/Island: Kent
Country: England

Street address:

Occupation:

Condition as to marriage:

Disability: View Image

Registration district: North Aylesford
Sub registration district: Northfleet
ED, institution, or vessel: 7
Neighbors: View others on page
Household schedule number: 26
Household Members: Name Age
James Burgess 45
Jane Burgess 46
Phillip Burgess 21
John Burgess 17
Harriet Burgess 15
Alfred Burgess 13
Isaac Burgess 11
Fanny Burgess 8
George Burgess 5
Mary Ann Burgess 3
Edward Burgess 1 Mo


View
Original
Record

View original image

?????
1851 England Census
about Jane Burgess
Name: Jane Burgess
Age: 46
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1805
Relation: Wife
Spouse's Name: James
Gender: Female
Where born: East Malling, Kent, England

Civil Parish: Halling
County/Island: Kent
Country: England

Street address:

Occupation:

Condition as to marriage:

Disability: View Image

Registration district: North Aylesford
Sub registration district: Northfleet
ED, institution, or vessel: 7
Neighbors: View others on page
Household schedule number: 26
Household Members: Name Age
James Burgess 45
Jane Burgess 46
Phillip Burgess 21
John Burgess 17
Harriet Burgess 15
Alfred Burgess 13
Isaac Burgess 11
Fanny Burgess 8
George Burgess 5
Mary Ann Burgess 3
Edward Burgess 1 Mo


View
Original
Record

View original image

Are you sure it wasn't James Burgess that she married?
There's a James & Jane on the 51 census in Haling, Kent with 9 children, one of them being Phillip.
James & Jane born 1806, Phillip 1830.

PHILIP BURGESS
Event(s):
Birth:
Christening: 11 JUL 1830 Halling, Kent, England

Death:
Burial:
Parents:
Father: JAMES BURGESS Family
Mother: JANE

Thought he was the eldest - looks like a sarah Too

SARAH BURGESS
Christening: 16 MAR 1834 Halling, Kent, England


and a John

JOHN BURGESS Pedigree
Male


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Event(s):
Birth:
Christening: 01 APR 1832 Halling, Kent, England

Same family in 1841:
Name: Phillip Burgess
Age: 11
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1830
Gender: Male
Where born: Kent, England

Civil Parish: Halling
Hundred: Shamwell
County/Island: Kent
Country: England

Street address:

Occupation: View Image

Registration district: North Aylesford
Sub registration district: Strood
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members: Name Age
James Burgess 30
Jane Burgess 30
William Burgess 15
James Burgess 13
Phillip Burgess 11
John Burgess 7
Sarah Burgess 7
Harriet Burgess 5
Alfred Burgess 3
Isaac Burgess 10 Mo


Living next door to this family:
Name: Leonard Burgess
Age: 30
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1811
Gender: Male
Where born: Kent, England

Civil Parish: Halling
Hundred: Shamwell
County/Island: Kent
Country: England

Street address:

Occupation: View Image

Registration district: North Aylesford
Sub registration district: Strood
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members: Name Age
Leonard Burgess 30
Jane Burgess 30
Elisa Burgess 6
Henry Burgess 4
Caroline Burgess 2

ahhh - thanks! Now some things are making sense. I know she called her husband Phillip but have found out his real name was James! I have found that little snippit in the last half hour!

Yes James and Jane were the parents - its Jane I am struggling with. If the birth cert. of the children will show her maiden name then its going to be fairly easy for me to do - albeit by buying one of the certs.

Its interesting to find out about my Grandmothers birth cert. It seems as if both her's and her brothers were the same, despite there being quite a few years difference in age. I don't know whether the family were 'hard up' or not - I should imagine they were as the little I know of my Gt. Grandfather on that side was that he worked in a hospital caring for those with Diptheria and the likes - something I wouldn't imagine was very well paid unless of course you happened to be a Dr.

Thanks again - being very new to all this I truly do need all the help I can get!

If your gt grandfather/grandmother is one of their children and they are registered (after 1837) then buy that certificate as it's part of your direct line.

You need to have evidence of your family if you want to take this hobby at all seriously so that does mean purchasing certificates etc along the way.

Jill

This looks like the birth of the youngest child on the 1851 census, so this should give you Jane's maiden name:-

Name: Edward Burgess
Year of Registration: 1851
Quarter of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar
District: North Aylesford
County: Kent
Volume: 5
Page: 493

Kath. x

Thanks again - to be honest I am not sure I could afford to buy birth/marriage death certs. for everyone, so maybe I need to think again about trying to do this. I know £7.00 isn't all that much, but on top of the subscriptions to the sites, credits etc its all going to add up to probably around £30.00 per week which is not really an option for me at the moment. I only started as of Jan. 1st and already I must have spent over £100.00 - and only got 1 marriage cert. as a result! I enjoy scouring round the websites looking for peeps and searching out the relevant matches where I can find them nd have found people so helpful in pointing me in the 'right' direction.

Thanks again for all your help - its been much appreciated.

I have found a one world tree
http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/owt/person.aspx?pid=154509035

Jane's maiden name is WOOD although here place of birth is given as Halling, I would try East Malling 1806. IGI ref C131581

first child was William ch 1 Oct 1826 East Malling
IGI ref C131581

I can understand how you feel about the amount of money it can cost for this hobby, and you don't have to buy a certificate every week, but if you are serious about having an accurate family tree then I'm afraid you really do have to buy at least some certificates to be sure you are following the right people.

I started this hobby almost 6 years ago and although I don't spend a lot nowadays apart from a subscription to Ancestry and Genes, in the first couple of years I spent literally thousands of pounds - it was the time before Ancestry had all the BMD's and I was spending a fortune on 1837online (which is now Findmypast) just looking up BMD indexes for myself and others on Genes.

It really is an expensive hobby - which TV shows such as "Who Do You Think You Are" never seem to mention.

Kath. x

Thanks Victoria/Kath - I made a few mistakes when I first decided to do this - ordering certis. etc from the more expensive places - I spent £35 on just one. Know I know to get them direct for £7.00! That and the subscriptions had cost me a fortune in January.

When we talk about evidence can I ask what is evidence! I know that sounds like a totally stupid question, but here goes anyway! Can I use census info. that I have downloaded or does it have to be a certificate? What about information on Ancestry/FMP or IGI (IGI I think can be unreliable, but that maybe just a rumour). Sorry to be a pest about this, but I am such a novice its hard to know if I am approaching this in the right way.

Victoria: Good Grief that means that if I have got things right, 2 of the sons of James married 2 sisters - Wood. That much I know already - and they were from East Malling. It looks like things could get a tad messy!

Thanks.

If this is your mob:

Births Mar 1900 (>99%)
Goodsell Bruce Donald Malling 2a 713

Marriages Sep 1897 (>99%)
>>Burgess Ruth Letitia L Strood 2a 1059
Fever Albert Edward Strood 2a 1059
>>GODSELL Edwin James Strood 2a 1059
Wraight Maud Violet Strood 2a 1059

Births Jun 1872 (>99%)
BURGESS Ruth Letitia L N. Aylesford 2a 434

Deaths Jun 1885 (>99%)
BURGESS Philip 55 Strood 2a 346

then from census, we know Ruth is d/o Philip + Emma, but I can't find an m.cert for Philip + Emma, nor for her remarr, i.e., Emma + Edward Rushmer/ Rushmore.
This being the case, the only way to find her Maiden Surname is to get Ruth's b.cert.

We'll miss out on her dad's name, but Emma's not a bad name to trace - it doesn't get mistranscribed, and it's not super common, so all won't be lost - we hope.


1881 England Census
Civil Parish: Halling
County/Island: Kent
Country: England
Street address: 9 Haltons Cottages
Registration district: North Aylesford
Sub registration district: Strood
ED, institution, or vessel: 6
Household schedule number: 94

Edwin Ball 38 Cuxton, Kent, England Head M Labr At Lime Works
Harriet Ball 35 Halling, Kent, England Wife M
James Burgess 60 Snodland, Kent, England W Genrl Lab (Unemployed)

Street address: 11 Haltons Cottages
Household schedule number: 96

Philip Burgess 50 Halling, Kent, England Head M Lime Burner
Emma Burgess 40 Halling, Kent, England Wife M
Ruth Burgess 8 Halling, Kent, England Daughter Scholar

Source Citation: Class: RG11; Piece: 880; Folio: 102; Page: 21; Line: ; GSU roll: 1341209.

Marriages Dec 1866 (>99%)
Burgess Harriet A N. Aylesford 2a 657
Burr Edwin N. Aylesford 2a 657

Debra - it's your tree, so you put in what YOU feel comfortable with.
Info from census is a bit of a judgement call - just think if you had an adopted son or a stepson, would you necessarily identify them as such on the census, or would you just say he's my son. Similarly, if you're looking after your mum's aunt, would you identify her as aunt or great aunt - possibly the former if that's how you always refer to her.

As for the IGI, there's really two sorts of records there. One is extracts of Old Parish Registers (or things of similar reliability). Here's a couple of examples (my ggg & gggg grandparents)

Results for: William Anderson, Marriage, Scotland, British Isles
Spouse: Elizabeth Scott
Exact Spelling: Off
Batch Number: m112195

International Genealogical Index / British Isles - 1
Select records to download - (50 maximum)
1. WILLIAM ANDERSON - International Genealogical Index
Gender: Male Marriage: 13 APR 1823 Lonmay, Aberdeen, Scotland


Results for: William Anderson, Marriage, Scotland, British Isles
Spouse: Janet Reid
Exact Spelling: Off
Batch Number: m111662

International Genealogical Index / British Isles - 1
Select records to download - (50 maximum)
1. WILLIAM ANDERSON - International Genealogical Index
Gender: Male Marriage: 16 JUN 1795 Saint Fergus, Banff, Scotland

When you actually check them against the originals, they might contain all the info that's in the OPR, but there might be something extra there.

Lonmay ABD OPR 1823
April 13th William Anderson and Elizabeth Scott both
in this parish declared their purpose of matrimony and
were married.

OPR for St Fergus BAN
June 16th 1795 William Anderson Servt to
P Reid in Alehousehill and son of Wm Anderson
in Ednie was this day married to Janet Reid
Daughter to Jas Reid in Old Kirkton

You can identify extracted records in several ways:
1) The record says:
Messages:
Extracted marriage record for locality listed in the record.
2) it's got a batch # beginning with C, E, J, K, M, P
3) there's block at the bottom of the record like:
Source Information:
Batch No.: Dates: Source Call No.: Type: Printout Call No.: Type:
M112195 1820 - 1855 0993429 Film 6902753 Film
Sheet: 00
(if you click on the Source Call No link and drill down, not forgetting the "view film notes" button at top right, you'll see:

Title Parish registers for Lonmay, 1687-1854
Authors Church of Scotland. Parish Church of Lonmay (Aberdeenshire) (Main Author)
Notes Microfilm of O.P.R. ms. no. 219 in the New Register House, Edinburgh.

Note Location Film
Vol.. 1. Baptisms, 1687-1758, marriages, 1687-1773. v. 2. Baptisms, 1758-1821, marriages, 1776-1777, 1788-1820. v. 3. Baptisms, 1820-1854, marriags, 1820-1854, burials, 1716-1721, 1792. (Preferred film for viewing. Use this before ordering the other filming.) FHL BRITISH Film 993429

so this tells you what the record is, where it is (or where it was when it was filmed) and the film #. You can rent these films to view at your local LDS FHC You can find one using the centre col of
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp
I could also do a place search (for Lonmay, here) in the LDS library catalog to get to the same source record)

Now the other sort of record in the IGI is the submitted one - submitted by anyone, but especially by Mormons. It's sort of like looking on someone's tree on the internet - they're mostly OK, but they do have errors. One problem is that you don't get to see the submitter's whole tree, just twiglets, so it's harder to judge the quality of their research. Also, a lot have been contributed by Americans, so the quality of there transcriptions of semilegible place names is sometimes rather iffy. My own view is that if someone else has figured out somebody's details, there ought to be a way I can do it too, so I'll go with that, once I've got it figured out and checked to MY satisfaction.

Parish records for Medway towns - Strood, Rochester, Gillingham - plus Gravesend and some of Malling - are online at Cityark which is Medway Council's site. Clunky old searching as it's sorted by church but each marriage will save you £7 plus you get to see their signatures as you are looking at copies of the originals. Baptisms give you almost as much info as birth certs so that can be another saving too.

I'm also adding my two penn'orth here.

Personally, I take my time over my tree. I do all branches, all back as far as I can. I build up what I think looks like reasonable info from the censuses etc and then prove it with birth and marriage certs etc. I do buy the occasional death cert but I'm a bit squeamish about those I'm afraid so they tend to come way down the list.

I opened a separate bank account - my no. 2 account - into which I put £10 per month on direct debit. That means at least one cert per month and sometimes two. (It has a small, very small overdraft facility - and yes, I have thought of making it £14 per month.) But you could do the same and make it £7 per month if money is a squeeze. That way, I only ever use that card to buy my certs. If I get the odd bit of cash, or the occasional cheque, I pay that into my no. 2 account and then order more than one or two certs! Great fun, focuses me on which ones to buy and means I also save those huge £2 coins and pay £20 worth into the bank now and then and order 3 certs in one go!

Easy-peasy. As my son says "they're all dead mum" so they're not going anywhere. There's no rush. I spend time in between ordering certs filling in a bit more on another line. Pootling around in Ancestry - on the censuses and other family trees. Googling. Writing up odd bits about some of the characters I've found. Tidying up the paperwork. It spreads the load.

Evidence? I read somewhere (I read Family History magazines and practically every book that the library possesses - plus my "bible" which is Mark Herber) that you need three pieces of evidence for each of your ancestors. That's difficult in some cases - but census info, yes. Certs - yes and lots of other things. Wills are great and cost £5 a pop if you order them - you can find some online (Norfolk have early wills on line so I've found a few of mine there) and they are fabulous. Not just for evidence but for things like " ... to my beloved wife Elizabeth ... " by my gr gr gr grandfather. They stop being just names and start being people. So, try for three pieces of evidence and find some gems!

Oh, and I'm doing a One Name Study and, because it's a fairly rare name it is fairly easy to build up tentative trees for some of them. Some of them are mine anyway, but even the ones who are not (yet) related, I can build quite a picture for them. I wouldn't attempt it with a fairly common name though. So, if you have any rare names then check out the Guild of One Name Studies who may have someone researching that name. But, if they are rare then they are relatively easy to piece together. (The flipside of the coin on rarer names of course is that they are so often mistranscribed! But the thrill of the case is part of this game!)

Jill