What to do? 2 Sarah Ann Kerley's?

[Carla]

All i have been doing for the last two days is going back over my tree and adding those 'additional' family members. Hopefully once i have done this i can add them to Lost Cousins however tenuous the connection!!
Mind you the only thing that seems to have happened is that on a number of occassions i cant be sure i have the right person. I mean how come i have found this when searching for the birth details of a Sarah Kerley....
Name:Sarah Ann Kerley
Gender:Female
Christening Date:26 Nov 1859
Christening Place:Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, England
Father's Name:Stephen Kerley
Mother's Name:Elizabeth
or
Name:Sarah Ann Kerley
Baptism Date:24 Nov 1861
Parish:Sixpenny Handley
Father's Name:Stephen Kerley
Mother's Name:Elizabeth Kerley

Short of sending away for the birth certificates how on earth can you know which one is correct as they both fall within the dates given in the censuses? You have to be so careful............

 

[Doreen]

Short of sending away for the birth certificates how on earth can you know which one is correct as they both fall within the dates given in the censuses? You have to be so careful............

Carla, I have several instances in my tree where a child was given the same name as one who had died, especially within a short period of time. Is it possible that is what has happened here?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Short of sending away for the birth certificates how on earth can you know which one is correct as they both fall within the dates given in the censuses? You have to be so careful............

You could be lucky and be researching Scottish births when the mothers maiden name is quoted. It does make it soooo much easier. For exactly the reasons you state I really struggle with the 1 in 32 part of my tree that is English.

It's the thing that REALLY annoys me about programs like Who do you think you are when they are constantly showing trees and always displaying females with their married name which to me is SO wrong. In my tree if I don't know a females birth name I always put a ? eg: I'd record the above as Stephen Kerley and Elizabeth ? not Stephen Kerley and Elizabeth Kerley.

How do those of you with predominantly English ancestors record females? With their married name or a ? (or unknown) when you don't yet know their maiden name?

 

[Doreen]

How do those of you with predominantly English ancestors record females? With their married name or a ? (or unknown) when you don't yet know their maiden name?

I leave mine at first name only.

 

[SuzanneD]

How do those of you with predominantly English ancestors record females? With their married name or a ? (or unknown) when you don't yet know their maiden name?

Like Doreen, I record by first name only - I use the PAF software which lets you leave a blank surname and has a field for married name. I do try to remember to enter the married name for all married women so I can set up searches and filters that cover both maiden and married names. When I'm typing up, I usually use a long dash in the place of the surname rather than a ?.

I notice that the one that trips many people up is recording widows with the name of their first husband rather than their maiden surname, which is easy enough to do if it's not clear from the marriage record that the bride was a widow and not a spinster. I must remember to go back to some of my brick walls and see whether I might break some down by testing whether a bride who seems to have appeared out of thin air is actually a widow...

I too have found the Scottish bits of my ancestry have been so much easier in that regard (matching the right adult child to the right parents!), not to mention the far more comprehensive information on registration certificates. Luckily in New Zealand we seem to have adopted a more Scottish style of certificate that is quite rich in genealogical information, especially on death certificates - assuming the informant got it right.

 

[Margery]

All i have been doing for the last two days is going back over my tree and adding those 'additional' family members. Hopefully once i have done this i can add them to Lost Cousins however tenuous the connection!!
Mind you the only thing that seems to have happened is that on a number of occassions i cant be sure i have the right person. I mean how come i have found this when searching for the birth details of a Sarah Kerley....
Name:Sarah Ann Kerley
Gender:Female
Christening Date:26 Nov 1859
Christening Place:Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, England
Father's Name:Stephen Kerley
Mother's Name:Elizabeth
or
Name:Sarah Ann Kerley
Baptism Date:24 Nov 1861
Parish:Sixpenny Handley
Father's Name:Stephen Kerley
Mother's Name:Elizabeth Kerley

Short of sending away for the birth certificates how on earth can you know which one is correct as they both fall within the dates given in the censuses? You have to be so careful............

Carla, quite possibly the first Sarah Ann died as an infant and the parents named the next one after her. I have come across this before so perhaps you should be looking for death between 1859 and 1861. Just an idea.....

 

[AdrienneQ]

If you only find one on census records it may be a case were the first baby dies and they reuse the name

 

[Tim]

How do those of you with predominantly English ancestors record females? With their married name or a ? (or unknown) when you don't yet know their maiden name?

I leave mine blank until I know the maiden name. However, I do have instances where the maiden name is the same as the new married name.

 

[AnneC]

I mean how come i have found this when searching for the birth details of a Sarah Kerley....
Name:Sarah Ann Kerley
Gender:Female
Christening Date:26 Nov 1859
Christening Place:Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, England
Father's Name:Stephen Kerley
Mother's Name:Elizabeth
or
Name:Sarah Ann Kerley
Baptism Date:24 Nov 1861
Parish:Sixpenny Handley
Father's Name:Stephen Kerley
Mother's Name:Elizabeth Kerley

Short of sending away for the birth certificates how on earth can you know which one is correct as they both fall within the dates given in the censuses? You have to be so careful............

I have come across this so many times recently, but when I looked at the burial records at the same time it was obvious that the earlier child had died young and the next child born was given the same name. Perhaps this could have happened in your case?

 

[peter]

I have come across this so many times recently, but when I looked at the burial records at the same time it was obvious that the earlier child had died young and the next child born was given the same name. Perhaps this could have happened in your case?

It's important to remember that whilst most children were baptised when they were no more than a couple of months old, that wasn't always the case. A child baptised in 1861 might well have been born in 1859.

Now look at the evidence:

1. There's only one Sarah Ann Kerley whose birth is recorded in the GRO indexes.
2. On the same day in 1861 there was a Frank Kerley baptised in the same church.

I reckon that the 1859 and 1861 entries relate to the same child.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

It's important to remember that whilst most children were baptised when they were no more than a couple of months old, that wasn't always the case. A child baptised in 1861 might well have been born in 1859.

Indeed I've seen several parish records where the whole family were baptised together on the same page. The give away for this is usually that the parish reference includes a "Frame" number in addition to the normal parish/year reference number. The "frame" number is the original picture of the page taken by the Mormons (FamilySearch.org) when they did the scans in the 1980s(?).

So I have seen instances where a family has moved to an area and for whatever reason hadn't previously had the children baptised and then suddenly get a "job lot" of baptisms. Note this means that the baptism of a child could be as old as 12-13. The key to finding these is searching for siblings as well as your direct line.

Who knows why they suddenly did this? Perhaps the new congregation were more insistent than the old Or perhaps the new parish had better poor law cover so it was more attractive registering there. We will likely never know.

 

[Emma]

All i have been doing for the last two days is going back over my tree

Short of sending away for the birth certificates how on earth can you know which one is correct as they both fall within the dates given in the censuses? You have to be so careful............

Before you do that have you checked to see if there is a death of the first Sarah between the two dates? For some strange reason in those days they often seem to give
a child exactly the same names as a previous one who had died. Worth having a look anyway.

 

[Heather]

Short of sending away for the birth certificates how on earth can you know which one is correct as they both fall within the dates given in the censuses? You have to be so careful............

There are births on FreeBMD registered in Wimbourne Dorset for......

Sarah Ann Kerley Dec qtr 1856
Sarah Ann Kerley Dec qtr 1859
Frank Kerley Dec qtr 1861
William Kerley Mar qtr 1864
George Kerley Mar qtr 1869

I cannot find a death for Sarah Ann 1856 so the mystery continues.........

On Dorset OPC there are the following entries......

425 26 Nov 1859 Sarah Ann dau of Stephen & Elizabeth KERLEY Labourer Handley
490 24 Nov 1861 Frank son of Stephen & Elizabeth KERLEY Labourer Newtown, Handley
491 24 Nov 1861 Sarah Ann dau of Stephen & Elizabeth KERLEY Labourer Newtown, Handley
561 24 Apr 1864 William son of Stephen & Elizabeth KERLEY Labourer Handley
668 05 Mar 1869 George son of Stephen & Elizabeth KERLEY Labourer Newtown, Handley

 

[peter]

The 1871 Census shows Frank Kerley aged 9 and Sarah Ann aged 11; they are both born Handley and their parents are Stephen and Elizabeth. This ties in with my posting about the duplicate baptisms on Saturday.

Surely Carla's original problem has been solved?

 

[Carla]

Hi everyone and thanks for the input. I did check for a death record just in case, as some of you have said, that the first Sarah Ann died and there was a second daughter named the same, but couldn't find one.

I also saw, as Peter mentioned, that a Frank and a Sarah Ann Kerley were baptised in 1861 and i initially thought were they twins (it's amazing what goes through your head....).

In the end i came to a similar conclusion to Peter in that the two Sarah Ann's are the same person....but why was she 'christened' and 'baptised' twice?

As for recording the mother's surname...i always leave it blank until i can prove what it is. In the Kerley case she was Elizabeth Luter.

 

[Liberty]

Hi everyone and thanks for the input. I did check for a death record just in case, as some of you have said, that the first Sarah Ann died and there was a second daughter named the same, but couldn't find one.

I also saw, as Peter mentioned, that a Frank and a Sarah Ann Kerley were baptised in 1861 and i initially thought were they twins (it's amazing what goes through your head....).

In the end i came to a similar conclusion to Peter in that the two Sarah Ann's are the same person....but why was she 'christened' and 'baptised' twice?

As for recording the mother's surname...i always leave it blank until i can prove what it is. In the Kerley case she was Elizabeth Luter.

Just a thought... but I have instances in my tree where somebody seems to have been christened on one date and 'received into the church' on another, resulting in apparent duplication. The theological significance escapes me, but I supect that whoever does the transcription of records may not indicate the difference.
I endorse Alexander's point about some people being christened at a comparatively advanced age - don't assume they are always babes in arms. (When I was confirmed into the church of England 'merely' some decades ago, the vicar pointed out that if we hadn't been baptised, we had to be before we were confirmed, and spoke of one young woman who was christened one afternoon and confirmed the same evening)

 

[peter]

why was she 'christened' and 'baptised' twice?

The first thing to check for in these circumstances is whether the first entry was a private baptism, in which case the second entry would relate to her being received into the church.

That isn't the case - so my guess is that her parents forgot that she'd been baptised previously, lost the baptism certificate, or else forgot to invite someone important to the original baptism (a grandparent or well-off relative, perhaps).

 

[SuzanneD]

That isn't the case - so my guess is that her parents forgot that she'd been baptised previously, lost the baptism certificate, or else forgot to invite someone important to the original baptism (a grandparent or well-off relative, perhaps).

I have a similar case in my tree - two baptisms of a child called Abraham to the same couple in the same place in 1828 and 1831, another sibling baptised on the same day in 1831, no burial record for the Abraham born in 1828, and throughout his life the 'surviving' Abraham gave an age consistent with being born in 1828 not 1831. Turns out dad was in prison for poaching when he was baptised first time round, so it looks like he was done again with his father present.

 

[Carla]

That's very interesting SuzanneD ...... i have double checked the censuses and all of them say Sarah's dob as abt 1860 which maybe could indicate the baptism of 1859 as more reasonable? Both christenings/baptisms were in November of the yer. Oh goodness you could go round in circles here. Thank goodness this doesn't happen very often, to me at least!!

 

[peter]

That's very interesting SuzanneD ...... i have double checked the censuses and all of them say Sarah's dob as abt 1860 which maybe could indicate the baptism of 1859 as more reasonable?

I always deduct an additional year on the basis that most people wouldn't have had a birthday in the year of the census - with censuses taking place at the end of March or beginning of April (1841 was an exception) three-quarters of individuals wouldn't have celebrated their birthday by the time the enumerator came calling.

However, in this case there's no need for conjecture - you know that Sarah Ann's birth was registered in the final quarter of 1859, so if her age is shown correctly in the censuses then the census websites will inevitably give her year of birth as 1860.

My 3G grandfather also seems to have been baptised twice, but in different parishes - but it's not the only instance in my family tree. Double baptisms may not be common, but nor are they particularly rare. Often it isn't obvious why there were two baptisms, but in my ancestor's case the second baptism was in the parish church where his parents had married 9 months previously - that's probably a clue!