Genealogy Chat

hi all, my granddad, before he married my grandma was married to someone else. The sad part is, the lady he married, died age 32 peritonitus after giving birth to he last child, the 5th in the family. I dont know why because the children were really my STEP AUNTS and UNCLES is that right, I think so, Aterr I had done a lot of research on the family, I realized what a sad life they had, EVERYONE EXCEPT one in the family died before they reached 45 years old, and thats going back to 1851. So they were all dying young, and the children wee continually being found in orphanages, really sad. Anyway 5 children, and on checking 3 of the 5 died before they reached 30, the fourth one died died age 42, but the fifith one actually lived till she was 67. So off I send for death certs for them all. Out of the 5, 4 of them gave the mothers name as ELIZABETH, my grandmother, and not JANE who was their true mother The dads name on the Certs were OK. only a small point but summat to watch out for dont you think. am I BORING YOU WITH MY FAMILY HISTORY. HOPE NOT? Got a joke to tell you later, its topical but not in the best of taste, BUT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT. ted xxx

Sorry, I don't understand. Your grandfather was married to Jane, who died after having her 5th child. Then he married Elizabeth. All the children's death certs except one have Elizabeth as their mother instead of Jane, is that what you are saying? Who was the informant on the deaths? Maybe it was just a simple mistake, assuming current wife was mother of the children. nell

If the children were little when Jane died, they may not have remembered her name and their children would not have known Elizabeth was their step grandmother instead of their grandmother. Death certificates are the least accurate of all certificates as it is not the individual or their parents that register them generally. (if Elizabeth is your grandmother then the children you refer to would be the half brothers and half sisters to either your mum or dad and therefore they are your half uncles and half aunts.)

I had the same problem except on the marriage certificate of my gr gran her mum's maiden name was down as Russell any way could not find her marriage so decided to find her death found it but her maiden name was different so found her marriage under right maiden name but kids marriages had all but one had Russell as mum's maiden name last one to marry was her right maiden name so had a look at the births and deaths and found out her half sister had moved near her so that is why she went back to right name

I had an odd one too, which might have been a very big problem had I not got the marriage certificate first... my gt gt grandma died at the ripe old age of 81, in 1917. She had been a widow for nearly 30 years. Her granddaughter who was aged 21 registered her death and declared she was 'widow of John Common, Police Constable'. Her daughter's birth & marriage certs give her father's name as Joseph, and I also have her mother's marriage cert with groom's name Joseph. OK so granddaughter never knew him (he died before she was born) so she got the name wrong. She will have known other John Commons as she had an uncle & gt. uncle (Joseph's brother) by that name. Haven't found a second marriage for her when she was in her 60's (not v likely anyway?) Police constable? Well, all the censuses I've found him after he married, he was a coal miner... is this just a touch of snobbery? Vicky

Ted Is your email working? Have sent a couple of messages to you, each time get a message saying the delivery has been delayed but not to send it again. Are you receiving me? Over and out. Tina

Certainly information on death certs is generally the most suspect because it depends on what the informant knew, and they couldn't check with the deceased whether it was correct! On a birth certificate, the informant is usually the mother or father so the information given should be accurate, (unless of course the mother pretended to be married when she wasn't); on a marriage certificate again the people involved were there so all information should be correct unless they were lying, ( for instance to say they were older than they were so their parents wouldn't have to give consent), or really didn't know how old they were or what their father's name was. Having said that, certain of my ancestors lied about everything they could on marriage certificates and didn't register their children's births themselves, so I have quite a few wildly inaccurate birth and marriage certs among my collection. Kate.

Doh.....I must be having a breakdown...????? Surely death certs for children don't usually have the mother's name on them, unless the child was illegitimate??? ie the ''Occupation'' box usually reads ''the son/dau of John Smith, bricklayer''. Oh.......(light bulb in brain switches on!).....do you mean the step mum registered the deaths and described herself as ''Mother''?? Sorry, worked it out whilst typing, but thought I might as well leave the post!! Very sad isn't it?? That branch of your family seem very unlucky, Ted :o(( I seem to be lucky how many of my family and hubby's lived into old age. I have about 1,400 people on our tree with a date of death.....of those, approx: 300 died aged 70-79 230 died aged 80-89 220 died aged 0-9 200 died aged 60-69 Roughly 80 died in each catagory 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 and 90-99 50 died aged 10-19 and two lived to be 100!! Merry