Adopting the maternal surname

[Bob Spiers]

I was watching an old 'Restoration Man' programme on TV which, on this occasion was about the restoration of a very old and dilapidated Windmill in Bodorgan, Anglesey, Wales. As always the building's history is researched and as a clue there were initials carved in stone over the doorway. There were four in all the last two being F.M and what followed caught my attention.

The F stood for Fuller, the original surname of the owner and learned upon marriage he took on his wife's surname Meyrick. Whether the F.M became hyphenated or the 'F' absorbed as a secondary name was not mentioned.

The Researcher said it was most unusual for the husband to take on his wife's surname but more in depth research likely explained the reason. It turned out the Meyricks' at that time and earlier were very dominant land owners throughout Anglesey, and it was said that one could walk the entire breadth without the need to step off land owned by the Meyrick family. So almost certainly Mr Fuller had good reason to adopt his wife's surname, and likely it was a condition of marriage?

I think the wife wishing to incorporate her maiden name with her new surname -with or without hyphenation - is fairly commonplace, but cannot recall it happening the other way round. What is the experience of others?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I've encountered this on numerous occasions usually on tours of castles or stately homes where the guides tell you that the Nth earl/duke/lord etc father married into the family and changed his name to whatever the castle/stately home's family name was as a condition of marriage.

I also know of one specific documented example from my one name study documented in the Thanage of Fermartyn.

 

[Liberty]

I've encountered this on numerous occasions usually on tours of castles or stately homes where the guides tell you that the Nth earl/duke/lord etc father married into the family and changed his name to whatever the castle/stately home's family name was as a condition of marriage.

I concur that it was often insisted on by the girl's father so 'the name wouldn't die out' though I couldn't have given any examples.

Florence Nightingale's father changed his name as condition of inheriting a substantial sum. If he hadn't done that, she might have gone down in history as Florence Shore - and she hadn't been born in Italy it might have been e.g. Mary Shore.

 

[SuzanneD]

I can only think of one instance of this in my tree, and it's clearly a case of the man taking on his (posher) heiress wife's name as his children would eventually be heirs to their maternal grandfather's estate. In this case, the man kept his original surname as a middle name and the children all had it as a middle name, so it gets quite confusing as to whether they were double-barrelled or not! Even in contemporary sources they are referred to by both the double-barrelled name and just their mother's surname.

The one I have more trouble with is the 'alias' - I've just been trying to untangle a family known as 'Warner alias Jarrett'. I could understand if it was just for one person/generation; I have a couple of those in the tree, usually the child of a solo mother who has later married and the child is known by both the mother's surname and the step-father's surname. In this case, though, the dual name persists for at least three generations in the late 16th and early 17th century before settling down to Jarrett. In some cases the parish registers record both names, in others they use only one. In a couple of cases, some children in a family are baptised under Warner, and others under Jarrett... Does anyone know how these persistent aliases come about?

 

[Liberty]

The one I have more trouble with is the 'alias' - I've just been trying to untangle a family known as 'Warner alias Jarrett'. I could understand if it was just for one person/generation; I have a couple of those in the tree, usually the child of a solo mother who has later married and the child is known by both the mother's surname and the step-father's surname. In this case, though, the dual name persists for at least three generations in the late 16th and early 17th century before settling down to Jarrett. In some cases the parish registers record both names, in others they use only one. In a couple of cases, some children in a family are baptised under Warner, and others under Jarrett... Does anyone know how these persistent aliases come about?

I have something vaguely similar in my tree. I have one family that seems to flip-flop between Shepherd and Hannah for a few generations (and I don't the hows and whys, except that early 19th century there were 2 boys born illegitimately to Ann Hannah, which might just mean she wasn't admitting her surname....).
Another one, the baptism register is marked 'alias Cooper' for a couple of generations in the 19th century. I think in this case someone was born to a Miss West but consistently used his father's name of Cooper (the parents married after his birth) and so did his children. I have rather assumed that they were presented for christening under the legal name of West, but a note was made because everyone knew them as Cooper.

I wouldn't know the strength of the term 'alias'. It rather has overtones of criminality, which aren't really fair. (I am pretty certain that the deeds to our house (admittedly in Scotland) list me with both my maiden and married name, as if I used either/both.) In the cases of stepchildren, they may have been known 100% by the stepfather's name, but technically their name was that of their mother, and that is all the term means. Then, a man going by his stepfather's name would have no 'right' to pass it on to his children so the annotation would continue. In the case where 'some children in a family are baptised under Warner, and others under Jarrett' do they move back and forth, or was there a complete change? If so, it could be a change of vicar or parish clerk who had a different policy on these things.

 

[AndyMick]

I have something similar in a branch of my One Name Study. Henry Micklethwaite married in 1864 and then disappeared from the censuses only to reappear in 1901. I eventually found the family (searching for forenames only) living with the alias Stead. One of his daughters left a will in which she was "Micklethwaite alias Stead". I believe that Henry's father, Joseph, was illegitimate. Joseph always used the name Micklethwaite, but obviously his descendants weren't so sure!

 

[Jean999]

I found an example where the Rev Samuel Beilby married and adopted his wife's surname. Fortunately I also found an article in The Gentleman's Magazine that explained the circumstances.

 

[peter]

There's a 1950s example in my tree, plus some other jiggery-p0kery with surnames, also in the 1950s (see this newsletter article).