General Chat

Hello Joy, A common problem, I'm afraid. I've got one family branch in the 19th century where they kept using the name George in every generation. Sometimes there were two brothers with this name in the same generation, one or other possibly with a second Christian name. Drove my aunt wild while she was originally trying to get the info together, only eventually got it sorted out by visiting the county record office and tracking down ALL the birth certificates for this family! So there, THAT got them sorted! My Rhodesian grandad was another problem. Born in the Scottish Highlands and conscripted into a Highland regiment to go out and fight the Boers in 1900. After the war ended, he and a mate liked the South African countryside so much that they jumped ship and deserted, rather than be shipped back to GB. He then changed his name (although not legally), by tacking on odd bits. Fast forward to 1965, when my aunt was trying to visit us in England for the first time since she saw my mother off on the quayside in Durban in 1938. Needed a British passport, as SR was still legally a British self-governing colony at that time, just a few months before Ian Smith's UDI, and needed to prove her father's nationality for the purpose. My mother tried the records office in Edinburgh, came up blank (obviously). Then vaguely remembered bedtime stories on the front stoep when she and my aunt were young children, and the story of changing his name. Tried the "right" name and came up trumps! My mother then advertised in a Scottish daily with an invitation to any surviving relatives of my g-dad to contact her, as they were planning a touring holiday in Scotland when my aunt arrived. Half Scotland replied, and many of them were unaware of one another's existence! Keep your cool, and have fun! Philip

Joy i have emailed you Margaret

Hi Jean they drive you round the bend keep changing their names i was born Margaret and that the way it has stayed

Judith no nothing to do with me but what magazine was it in Margaret

Ok Joy thank you i will do that , and Beckenham has some happy childhood memories for me lived with my aunt and uncle there for about two years around about 1962 they lived in Blandford Road

Thank you for that Judith i have yet to find Henry/James marriage to Elizabeth Jolliffe yet still it is all good fun. Margaret x

Hi Joy Grandfathers name is Stanley Arthur Bishop born 22 May 1902 see you are a Kentish maid where in Kent are you Margaret

I have a birth certificate for my grandfather his fathers name is Henry James Bishop i then decided to get a marriage certificate for grandad fathers name on marriage certificate is James Henry Bishop. On the 1901 census fathers name is James Henry Bishop, so i am a little stuck on who or what name to put in to my family tree Any advice please Margaret x