XPost: alt.genealogy, england.genealogy.misc, free.uk.genealogy   
   From: keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net   
      
   On 8/30/2018 11:14 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:   
   > I've just had an interesting case of mistaken identity.   
   >   
   > I was trying to follow up a Percy ELLWOOD, son of Henry Holme ELLWOOD   
   > and Mary BUCKLEY, who was born in Cheshire in late 1876.   
   >   
   > In the 1901 Census Percy was in Nottinghamshire, boarding with a   
   > Radnall family, and working in a clothing shop.   
   >   
   > I wondered if he had got married there, and looked in FreeBMD and   
   > found a marriage in Leicester for a Percy ELLWOOD to Emily Priscilla   
   > WARD.   
   >   
   > I could not find a Percy ELLWOOD ub the 1911 Census, but there was one   
   > in Canada, and there was a shipping list showing Percy and Emily, with   
   > two children, Jack and Edward, travelling to Canada in September 1905.   
   > Edward ELLWOOD was baptised in Cheshire, and the marriage of Percy and   
   > Emily in Leicester showed Percy's residence as Nottingham, which   
   > seemed to fit with the 1901 Census.   
   >   
   > There was only one problem -- a Canadian census showed Percy as having   
   > a brother Alexander David ELLWOOD, but our Percy did not have such a   
   > brother.   
   >   
   > Further investigation showed that there were TWO Percys, born about 7   
   > months apart. The second Percy, with the brother Alexander, was born   
   > in Leicester, son of John ELLWOOD and Emma Sarah WILLIAMS, who both   
   > came from London, not Cheshire. They had several other children, as   
   > did John's parents, Henry and Mary ELLWOOD of Southwark, born around   
   > 1804 and 1806.   
   >   
   > It just goes to show how easily one can be misled -- I was pretty   
   > certain that since Percy and Emily had a child born in Cheshire, he   
   > must have been the Percy who was born there, but he wasn't.   
   >   
   > Now I'm trying to find whether the Leicester Percy's grandparents   
   > Henry and Mary ELLWOOD link up with any other ELLWOOD families.   
   >   
   >   
   I have also had a similar situation.   
      
   While the distance was not involved there were two girls who born a   
   couple miles and months apart.  After they married the did not stray far   
   from the birthplace.  In early documents, one decided that she would go   
   be her middle name and the other by her first name. In later documents   
   they both went by their first name.   
      
   It took several years to sort them out and find documentation to prove   
   there were two girls. I finally found both of their marriage licenses,   
   death certificates, and the obituaries of their fathers that listed them   
   with their married names.   
      
   Unfortunately this error still appears in some online trees, and their   
   owner seem un interested in correcting their mistake.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)