LAMB & LAWRANCE, Puckeridge, Standon, mid 19th century April, 2003	Answers Places Puckeridge
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Charles Lamb (charlesl45 @t aol.com) of Eastbourne writes According to his birth certificate, Andrew Charles Lamb was born on 27 Nov 1855 at Puckeridge, Standon.   Registered on 5 Jan 1856 by the mark of Ann Lamb Mother, Residence Puckeridge.  Father given as Joseph Lawrance, registrar Charles William Carter. Is it possible to obtain an address for the parents/place of birth?

The address "Puckeridge" given on the certificate would be the "correct" address within a village as small as Puckeridge, at a time when most people could not read or write and everyone in the village knew everyone else and where they lived. If the child was baptised it is possible that the church register could be more helpful - but I doubt it. In general the best bet for locating a property is to demonstrate continuity of occupation and locate the relevant property with the help of a large scale map, census returns, and other sources. If the property was copyhold there may be manorial records, and if freehold there may be documentary evidence - possibly with the existing deeds of the house. In the case of Puckeridge the starting point would be the 1851 and 1861 census, the 1839 tithe map of Standon at HALS and the large scale Ordnance Survey maps at oldmaps. You would need to adapt the techniques described in Locating Census Addresses on Maps depending on the material available. Because Puckeridge was on a busy road there were a fair number of pubs, and these can be useful fixed points in any analysis.

In your case there is a complication. As Andrew Charles Lamb was the son of Ann Lamb and Joseph Lawrance he would appear to be illegitimate - and the normal procedure was not to record the father's name. As far as I am aware the father's name could only be entered after 1875, and even then the father had to accompany the mother to the registry office and agree for his name to be included. However, if the couple were living together I suspect the normal procedure was that a "marriage" would be assumed for the purposes of the certificate - and the child would then have been registered as Andrew Charles Lawrance. In these circumstances there must be some doubt that the place of birth was the parent's joint home - because there may not have had a joint home.