Looking to verify if my ancestor Sarah Johnson was actually given the name of Josepha Johnson at bir
I have been searching for a birth record for Sarah Johnson (KWNK-ZY9) listed as born 14 Jul 1852Nottingham, Notts, England, daughter of Alfred and Mary Ann (formally Oaks) and have come up empty. Nor could I find her in an 1861 census. I found that in her marriage certificate her name was Sarah Josepha Johnson. I found a birth certificate for a Josepha Johnson, with parents Alfred and Mary Ann formally Oaks. He is listed as a tailor, which we know her father was. The problem is that the birth date is a couple of years before the birth date that is listed for our Sarah. It says she was born 2 July 1848. I have also found a 1851 and 1861 census for Josepha Johnson living with her parents Alfred and Mary Ann. I believe it is our Sarah Johnson. For some reason she must have changed her name. Anyone else have any insight on this? How can I prove they are the same people? I'd like to clean up her father and mother's sources, as they have multiple Alfred Johnson linked to the same person.
Answers
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I would not be concerned about given names swapping their order. Of more concern is the date discrepancy.
Re the name:
I did find a baptism for another Sarah Josepha Johnson on FindMyPast - 22 May 1878 at Belgrave, St Peter's, Leicestershire to William Alfred and Elizabeth. William Alfred Johnson is the name of Josepha's younger brother in the 1861 census in Leicester. So Sarah Josepha Johnson is a known name, as it were. I also note there that there is a Joseph on that 1861 - registered as James Joseph Johnson Q2 1852. Maybe she got fed up of being mixed up with her brother and used Sarah instead!
Re the date. The first question is - how solid is your trail back?
If I take the 1871 marriage as a starting point then we have a 3 name correspondence to the 1871 census in Leicester, plus a match on ages and jobs (matching Sarah Josepha from the marriage to Sarah on the census). There's only 2 Hiram Bulls born in that era that I could see, the other one is in Nottingham in 1871 where he was born - so we surely can be certain that the census is them - and therefore that we have direct evidence from the match of marriage and census that Sarah Josepha is Sarah.
Why the discrepancy in age? Roughly speaking, I would say that since Hiram is only 18 and she's 22 at their marriage, she wouldn't be the first woman to drop a bit off her age so as not to be older than her husband-to-be. The 1861 and 1851 are consistent with the 1848 date so it's something that's happened at her marriage and not a gradual drift.
NB FreeBMD shows no other Josepha Johnson in 1837-1891 in birth, marriage or death.
So, summing up - the marriage and the 1871 show that Sarah Josepha is Sarah. Swapping the order to Josepha Sarah and shortening that in earlier censuses to Josepha is all quite normal. The change of year is explicable by the desire not to be older than her husband.
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