Genealogy: Another mystery

[dimity_blue]

I'm pretty sure of the actual facts in this, I'm just curious if there's a reason I'm missing.

The 1901 and 1911 censuses give me the ages of William and Emma as 5/15 and 2/12. Therefore their birth years are ~1896 and ~1899. A search on the GRO gives me birth years of 1896 and 1898. That all works out.

Then I find their baptism records. They were baptised on the same day (13 Feb 1906). Their names/parents' names/address/father's occupation all match.

Their listed birthdates are 24 Aug 1895 for William and 4 Oct 1894 for Emma.

Do I assume J.M. K--- (who baptised them) was really bad at maths or am I missing something?

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I would double check the GRO indexes for 1894 & 95 just in case (if you haven't already) and if not, then I would have to assume that the vicar made an error in the years (hopefully not the birth dates).

There are a lot of errors in everything!

[dimity_blue]

I've been through about 20 years of possible dates (and found 2 short-lived kids from the same marriage). Unless I'm doing something drastically wrong, it all seems solid.

I've also got some more occupations: gas fitter, cabinet maker, butcher, and shoemaker.

[thisbluespirit]

Occupations, yay!!

And in that case, i'd be pretty confident the vicar/curate/whoever has got really confused either at the time or when copying the entries out into the register later. (Because parish registers were often copied out from the vicar's notes afterwards, rather than filled in at the time, so sometimes they just couldn't read their own handwriting!)

[dimity_blue]

No! Really?! LOL! That's just so helpful of them!

[thisbluespirit]

Occasionally you even come across whole segments, especially in older registers where the next incumbant has noted something like "The late vicar failed to write up any entries for the last 20 years, we have filled in the last 10 from notes found in the vestry." (And then you get a run of entries that therefore go something like 1780-1800, 1820-1840, 1803-1813 etc.)

I have one ancestor whose baptism got missed and then found and re-entered with "either 1826 or 1827" - I shall never know!!

ETA: But on the plus side, I once found a letter scanned in one of the parish registers that turned out to be a missing sibling whose baptism had been omitted and it was a letter from about 40 or 50 years saying that his mother had found out it wasn't there and asked for it to be put in and got two of his godparents to swear to having been there at the christening. And so that was cool. But it is definitely worrying!!

[dimity_blue]

I'll definitely be giving some parish records the side-eye!

That last story is rather sweet though.

[swordznsorcery]

Listen to the Blue Spirit, for it is wise. :)

Seriously, when I was researching my mother's maternal grandfather, nothing matched. Nothing. Nothing was spelled the way it was meant to be, birthdates didn't match up, birth places changed, names played musical chairs. A combination of illiteracy, Irish names and/or accents confusing record-keepers (I'm guessing there, but seems likely), people guessing about DOBs because they didn't really know for sure - you name it, it happens with ye olde records. After researching my family, nothing about such things surprises me any more!

[dimity_blue]

How on earth did you manage to trace anyone?

[swordznsorcery]

Time. Time, patience, and obsessive cross-referencing. (And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.)

[dimity_blue]

And a Magic 8 ball, from the sounds of it! I'm completely impressed.

[swordznsorcery]

It probably helps that I'm autistic. I can be a bit obsessive. :D

Seriously, it just takes patience. Sometimes you have to think a bit obliquely, and make a few logical guesses. Then check and double check, and cross reference to hell and back. If it's more modern stuff, the census records get better with time. With the older stuff, there's a lot of luck involved, especially given how many people back then seem to have had the same name. (Seriously - trying to research one branch of the family, and it appears everybody in the London area in the 18th century was called William. And married somebody called Elizabeth. Everybody. It makes you long for a Nigel or a Trixibelle.)

I've been lucky all along, actually. So many dirt poor, migrant Irish workers, and yet they left a paper trail. Yes, the names were spelt wrong, and nobody seemed to know their own dates of birth! But it's amazing how many birth records I was able to find, when by rights there shouldn't really have been anything. The Scottish records are a huge help. So much more detail than the English ones.

[dimity_blue]

"(Seriously - trying to research one branch of the family, and it appears everybody in the London area in the 18th century was called William. And married somebody called Elizabeth. Everybody. It makes you long for a Nigel or a Trixibelle.)"

At least future geneologists should have it a little bit easier. :oD

It fascinates me that names are repeated so often. I'm currently working on a G-g-Grandad whose daughter has my middle name for her first name. It makes for a nice link.

Also, thinkng of them in terms of relationships makes them seem so close, you know? That's not just "M. Gregson, 1854 - ?" That's my Grandma's Grandma.

I'm glad you were able to find out so much. Are you still climbing your family tree? Exploring new branches?

[swordznsorcery]

Always! There are always new things to find. My father's side of the family have kept a family tree going back generations, but there still seem to be new things to find; and even if names and dates aren't a surprise, with findmypast I can find records that are always fun. I like to try chasing the infamous "Aunt Jessie", for instance - she was born in 1867, never married, and spent most of her life globetrotting. I like finding her name on random passenger lists! And then there's newspapers to hunt through for some relatives as well of course. Some good stories and some not-so-good. ;)

My mother's side of the family are more of a mystery, and she's a real history buff. She loves being introduced to ancestors. A lot of what I do I do for her. Again she has some family tree records, but they tend to follow the name, which of course means the men. She likes to know about the women. Harder to trace, since their names generally change (and they all have the same blinking name anyway!), but I like to see what I can find.

[dimity_blue]

No staying at home for "Aunt Jessie" then! What an adventurer she sounds!

I hope your mum gets to track down all her ancestors.

[swordznsorcery]

Some time in the late 19th century she travelled across America on the back of a mail coach. Unaccompanied! The horror!

That's Aunt Jessie. Not my mother. :)

[dimity_blue]

I figured! :oD

But go, Aunt Jessie! She sounds amazing.