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Can anyone solve this for me please?
On the 1891 census at Haggate there's a Mary Leaver (b 1844). The others with her are her brothers Joseph & Thomas Emmett/ Emmott, her brother-in-law Moses Greenwood and their children - her nephews & nieces.

*I can find a Mary Emmott/ Emmett of the right age on all previous censuses with the aforesaid brothers and others.
*There was also a sister who married Moses Greenwood and then died before 1891.
* Mary Emmett/ Emmott does not appear on 1891
* There's no trace of a Mary Leaver b1844 before 1891.

So I'm as certain as you can be that it's the same Mary.

However I can't find a marriage for her and a Leaver between 1881 & 1891 and she re-appears as Emmott in 1901.
I can't understand why the enumerator would have mistakenly put her as Leaver since there aren't even any other Leavers on the same page.
Any ideas anyone?

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

She told the enumerator a fib? The enumerator was thinking something else while writing down her details? (I know I have done this, written the surname in my head instead of the one I intended on putting)

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Mel

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I think you're probably right. Or maybe it was wishful thinking on her part?!?
One good thing about family history in days gone by, people didn't get divorced and usually didn't go 'living with' and adopting their partner's name.
So at least I can rule that out.

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

Really!

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Mel

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I'm not moralising - just saying that it makes it easier to keep track of people.

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

I didn't think you were moralising Maureen, I wasn't having a dig. I'm not sure about the assumption on the living together though. I think it did go on, even then. I don't think the working classes saw divorce as an option....it would probably boil down to finances.
Anyone else have thoughts about this?

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Mel

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I think they stayed married in the early days because there was'nt much of an option, even if the marriage was bad they stuck it out, they did'nt have a welfare state as we have now, and most of them had quite large families, so divorcing was relatively unheard of. There was also the fear of the workhouse hanging over them to I suppose.

We dont know we have been born today do we, 'the state will provide' seems to be todays mantra in some cases, loads of hand outs, the stigma of illegitamacy no longer exists either.
It is a totally different world, some of it is for the better, but some of it is not.

Stephanie.

I wonder what future researchers will make of me? Though married, I have (for now at least) opted to keep my maiden name. Will it cause confusion when comparing census returns and marriage documents?

Mind you, I have a Sutcliffe who married but used her maiden name on census returns. I though she hadn't married initially...until I found the certificate.

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Mel

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You will probably confuse them a bit I suppose, you will have a different surname to Lyndon but your status will be down as married as will Lyndon's. You would'nt have been married when we did the last census would you Mel? I cant remember what year it was, when are we due the next one do you know?

Stephanie.

I was officially still living with my parents on the last one though I was in the process of moving in here a bag/box at a time. Next one is 2011.

Something else to raise a smile for future researchers - Lyndons older brother is married to my older sister. Our tree's also cross in the early 1800's.

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Mel

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That will be your future ancestors.

Stephanie.

Differnce between now and then is that nowadays we're better documented and probably easier to trace - especially those wise virgins who are doing their trees now rather than leaving it to our 'future ancestors'

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

I have one guy, married with family on a couple of censuses. Then he turns up with someone else as wife, and the original "wife" is still down as married with his surname. I think they just left wife/husband and set up house elsewhere as husband and wife with someone else, as they couldn't get a divorce. Wonder if they had to support the original family or they were just left to it.

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Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

We do have one with 3 children before she was married. One has her maiden name and the next two have the name of someone else. We haven't traced the birth of one of these but we do have the birth cert for the other and it shows the father's name and mother's "married" and maiden names. But we never found a marriage for her or a death for her "husband".
According to family legend this marriage wasn't a legal one and when she found out she just moved on.
But I still come back to where I started - as a general rule, people tended either to be married to the person they lived with or to keep their own names rather than assume their partner's name. And I haven't seen many illegitimate children registered with anything other than their mother's name.

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

I'd agree with that Maureen. The only time I have seen a fathers name is on a marriage certificate. A Sutcliffe from Roughlee was illegitimate, she named a father on her marriage certificate and it was not her mothers husband. We found a man with this name living a few doors from the mother on the census prior to the illegitimate birth. If my memory is right, he was married.

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Mel

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