Re: Help with a couple where a marriage record and spouse can't be found.
Background Information:I discovered a FamilySearch profile for William Thomas Day that had been previously edited by another contributor, who attached a spouse named Kate Lilian (PID GN6R-NGK), born 10 October 1877 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. No maiden name is listed for Kate Lilian.
After searching extensively, I have been unable to locate a marriage record for William Thomas Day and Kate Lilian, which leads me to believe that Kate Lilian may be an incorrectly identified spouse. I contacted the individual who attached Kate Lilian to William Thomas Day to request their supporting research, but I have not received a response.
This is my research question: Is Kate Lilian (born 10 October 1877, Liverpool, Lancashire), whose maiden name is currently unknown, correctly identified as the wife of William Thomas Day (born 16 November 1877), and if so, what evidence identifies her maiden name and documents their marriage prior to the birth of their first child about 1894?
Answers
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@Susan Cutler If you look at the sources of the children of William Thomas Day and Kate Lilian, you will find the mother's name on the christening records listed as Kate Lilian or Kate Lilian Day. This might have led the contributor, who added her name, to assume that Lilian was Kate's maiden name. The birth date, listed for Kate, I found on the attached 1939 census, England Wales National Register. I was able to locate the image of that record; the middle initial L was indexed as a T. It might be worth your time to search in historical records for a marriage record for William Thomas Day and Kate Lilian. https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/search-tips-for-historical-records
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From the available evidence, yes, Kate Lillian is correctly identified as William Thomas Day's spouse.
Her maiden name was Fraser. It is listed in the GRO index for the civil birth registrations of the couple's children.
The couple were married in 1899 with the marriage registered in West Derby, Lancashire.
The confusion in finding the marriage record may have arisen from the dates ascribed to the two sons named William. I suspect the elder was from a previous relationship given the birthdate of 1894 in the 1911 census. In that census record the younger William has a birth listed as 1902, Aldershot Hampshire, however the birth registration lists him as "William Thomas Day" b. 1900 West Derby, Lancashire, which matches with the location of the couple's marriage. I recommend looking at the original 1911 census record if you can, as it may contain more information than indexed and the transcriptions are known to contain errors.The younger William can be found with his mother in the 1901 census visiting the Harper Household. In that record Kate is listed as Catherine L Day.
There is also a death record for a Kathleen L Day in 1950, Warwickshire, which, going by the name in the 1939 register, may be a good match. It's possible she was buried in Handsworth Cemetery, but this would need further investigation as the record contains little information. There are a large number of Day individuals buried there, some of which match the names of other family members.
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Follow up: this niggled at me, so I cross-referenced the same 1911 census record on Ancestry and my suspicion about errors in transcription were correct.
Corrections as follows:
William Day age 17, born Liverpool, Lancashire (FS) = William Day aged 11, born Liverpool Lancashire (Ancestry). Matches to William Thomas Day born 1900 West Derby, Lancashire. Age was mis-transcribed in the FS/FindMyPast collection.
William Day age 9, born Aldershot, Hampshire (FS) = Edward Day aged 9, Aldershot, Hampshire. Matches to Edward Albert Day born 1901 Farnham, Surrey, England. Name was mis-transcribed in the FS/FindMyPast collection. (Aldershot is a border parish, hence the listings of both Hampshire and Surrey. Its dependant on if you're looking at civil registration district or parish).
I've made the amendments on the relevant PIDs to avoid further confusion.
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Just to confirm the findings of @RaniM, following her excellent "detective work"!
In the original document relating to the 1911 census, William's actual age appears have been originally written unclearly (giving the impression it might read "17" instead of "11") but another "11" has been added above the original figure, which should have clarified the actual age for the transcriber. As @RaniM further found, the "second William" shown in the Find My Past transcription is not "William" at all, but "Edward"!
Incidentally, had there been two sons called William in the original (one aged 17, the other 9 in this example), this would almost certainly have meant that either of the parents (William or Kate) would have had the elder son by a relationship prior to their marriage. But, to avoid confusion, let me stress that this was not the scenario in this case - but just involved simple transcription errors!
The other point that @RaniM has mentioned is the (importance of needing to refer to the) GRO index (at https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/Login.asp#Results ). For records up to a hundred years ago, a mother's maiden name is recorded for children's birth registrations, so you should have found the name FRASER against all of William's and Kate's children's registrations. From there, I usually carry out a search from the FreeBMD website to find a marriage between a (William) DAY and a spouse with the surname FRASER. The two websites mentioned above are not only free to use but I have found them to be essential finding aids in tracing individuals whose births, marriages and/or deaths were recorded in register offices in England & Wales (from 1837 onwards).
As a matter of interest, as I continue a project with locating every individual of my surname who is (openly) listed in the 1939 National Register, I am finding a huge number of errors. Most of these are due to poor transcribing, which I am reporting directly to Find My Past, by way of their Report An Error feature.
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