Right Name, Wrong Body

A very common mistake beginners make in researching their family tree is to assume that if you find someone with the right name and approximately the right age it must be your ancestor. Of course we all fight shy of John SMITH (155 bodies of any age in Hertfordshire in 1881 out of 3554 SMITHs) but what about Ralph THRALE (Only 1 Ralph out of 21 THRALEs), John IVORY (2 out of 122), Daniel HILL (2 out of 948) or George SEABROOK (24 out of 336).

A few Hertfordshire examples from my own researches demonstrate the dangers of jumping to conclusions as soon as you find one possible ancestor.

Let us start with John IVORY, a farmer who was born in at Kimpton in about 1800. A search of the 1851 census will find him living at Ansels End, Kimpton. He was described as 50 years old, a farmer of 120 acres employing four labourers. With him was his wife Susannah (44) and four children Charles (21), Mary Ann (14), Isaac (12) and George (7), all born at Kimpton.

At this stage would you shout eureka and rewind the microfilm? If so you would miss the fact that there were two houses at Ansels End. Who should be living there but John IVORY, a 50 year old farmer of 106 acres employing 4 labourers, who was born at Kimpton. With him was his wife Ann (47, born Codicote) and five children Samuel (19), John (14), Margaret Mary (11), Sophia (8) and Mary (5). Because they were living next door it was easy to spot that there were two people with the same names, ages, places of birth and occupations. If the two had lived at opposite ends of the village, or in adjacent villages, would you have found that there could be some serious grounds for confusion.

A couple of examples from the family tree of the BURCHMORE family of Flamstead show that similar looking records can have a very different interpretation. In 1797 Abigail BURCHMORE married a Ralph THRALE at Wheathampstead, and in 1799 her sister Sarah BURCHMORE married a Ralph THRALE at St Sepulchre, London. During the next generation Elizabeth BURCHMORE married someone called Daniel HILL in 1821 at Flamstead, while in 1827 her sister Martha BURCHMORE married a Daniel HILL at St Pancras, London.

Superficially the two cases look similar but they are very different. When Daniel HILL's first wife, Elizabeth, died he went to London to marry her sister Martha. If he had tried to marry her in Flamstead someone would have objected when the banns were called.

The Ralph THRALE case is very different and I wrote a letter about them that was published in the June 1998 issue of the Genealogists' Magazine at the end of Peter Razzell's paper "Same-name children - alive or dead?"

"In the light of recent correspondence on this subject, readers may be interested in an example which was fortunately solved by a will which carefully identified the people involved. Abigail BURCHMORE married Ralph THRALE at Wheathampstead, Herts, in 1796, and her sister, Sarah, married Ralph THRALE in London in 1799. The two Ralphs were half-brothers on their mother's side, and distant cousins on the THRALE side. Thomas THRALE had married Ann PARSONS at Sandridge, Herts, in 1761, and the older Ralph was born in 1766. After Thomas died Ann married Ralph THRALE of Nomansland, Sandridge, in 1774, and a son was born in 1778. As a Ralph THRALE had farmed Nomansland Farm for over a hundred years it is easy to see why the heir to the farm should have been called Ralph, despite the existence of a half brother of the same name."

It is not surprising that Abigail and Sarah's mother, Sarah BURCHMORE nee ANDREW was very careful to say which Ralph THRALE was which in her will, while one of the Ralph's mentions his brother Ralph in his will. (For a family tree see Who is related to Who.)

The final example relates to the question of George SEABROOK and his wife Sarah, who lived at Long Marston in the early 19th century, when it was still a hamlet in the parish of Tring. At that time it had a population of about 400. A partial search of the records has revealed the following events relating to Long Marston:

There are many possible interpretations of these observations. One possible interpretation of this is that George SEABROOK and Sarah IVES had the children born in the 1820's and early 1830's, and the Sarah who died in 1820 was married to a different George SEABROOK. Sarah IVES died in 1836 and the widower George SEABROOK married Sarah COOK. This is partly supported by the 1851 census as George SEABROOK (aged 55, so old enough to be the husband of Sarah IVES) is living with his wife Sarah (aged 40, so too young to be Sarah IVES, or mother of the children born in the early 1820's). She could well be Sarah COOK. They had a daughter Jane (aged 10) who was baptised at Long Marston on 1st January 1841. [However this interpretation is complicated by the fact the household includes an unmarried step-son, John PEASANT (20, plaiter, born Ivinghoe) and a grandson John PEASANT (3 weeks).]

Believe it or not but the 1851 census reveals yet another George and Sarah SEABROOK in the village. He (40, born Long Marston) was the publican of "The Crown" while his 42 year old wife was born in the nearby hamlet of Wilstone (then also part of the parish of Tring). I have found no record of this marriage but it might have been the marriage between George SEABROOK and Sarah OSBORN at Abbots Langley on 11th June 1832. (Or is this yet another George and Sarah SEABROOK in West Herts?)

It would therefore seem that in a short period of time, in a tiny hamlet, there were at least three different George SEABROOK married to four wives called Sarah SEABROOK. Excluding infants there were two additional George Seabrook, not married to a Sarah, who were born and lived locally in 1851. They were 18 year old George SEABROOK, an agricultural labourer born in Puttenham and living in Gubblecote (both near Long Marston) and George SEABROOK (28, boatman, born and living in Tring).

There is a lesson to be learnt from these examples. Because given names often run in families there is always a very real danger of cousins with the same name, and with similar ages and places of birth - however unusual the surname. If someone sends you some information can you be sure, without checking, that you have got the whole story? It is quite easy to gain a spurious set of ancestors by simply adding the first person whose name might fit into your family tree.

Some Further Examples

This example relates to the Howard family in the Hemel Hempstead baptism register of 1784.

As you can see William Augustus Howard, son of William & Mary Howard, was born on April 15th and baptised on May 30th, while William Howard, son of William and Sarah Howard was born on the May 30th and baptises on June 8th. Either of the two William Howard senior could be the William Howard listed in 1782 as a paper maker at Burymill End and/or the William Howard listed in 1784 as a paper maker at Two Waters.

See KINGHAM, Nash Mills, Abbots Langley, early 19th century for the problems encountered in sorting out two baptisms in the Hemel Hempstead register. It would appear that Ann Kingham (born 1824, the daughter of Thomas & Sarah Kingham) was the aunt of Ann Kingham (born 1825, the daughter of Thomas and Sarah Kingham).  It shows that even if the name, place and date in the register fits the person you are looking for there is no guarantee that it is the right person. (Normally if you get two apparently identical baptism entries a year of so apart the parents are the same and the first child died in infancy.)

In the case of REYNOLDS, Ridge & Colney Heath, 19th Century there is a danger of confusing the following children who were baptised in the St Albans area around 1820

William, son of George and Ann Reynolds, at St Stephen, 7 March 1819

William, son of William and Sarah Reynolds, at Ridge, 10 June 1821

William, son of Joseph and Elizabeth Reynolds, at St Peter, 14 April 1822

William, son of John and Dinah Reynolds, at Hatfield, 19 May 1822

In the case of Joseph NORRIS, Berkhamsted/Northchurch, 18th century there are two very similar families and it is not possible to make a clear decision which is which.

Did John Jennings and his wife have several children in Northchurch before moving to Hemel Hempstead? See what evidence helped to answer the question.

For more of the hazards of not checking your facts see

The Dangers of Internet Genealogy

To get an idea of how tangled family trees can get see

Who is Related to Who?

See also Right Name, Wrong Place?

Page updated March 2016