Genealogy Chat

A ex colleague had a letter addressed to Mr Marzipan (his name was Boyce)!

I'm sorry, but I have to stick up for bank staff, having been one myself for about 20 years. Banks like to make MONEY therefore they employ the barest minimum of people to do the maximum amount of work possible (especially the behind the scenes staff). They do not bother with proper training - no one knows the background about 'how things work' or 'what happens to other parts of the system if I do this' etc etc, except for a very few people who have been there a long time......... Everything is automated. They would rather pay out some compensation for a mistake than stop the mistake before it happens, as that could cost a lot more. I was going to go on and on, but here's one example that seems to capture the spirit...... When the bank I worked in introduced computers with mice, they were so worried they might have staff who were not doing enough work, they taught us all to use the mouse with the hand we DIDN'T write with. This was in order that we could use the mouse with one hand and write with the other at the same time!! This is now being passed on down my family, as my son aged 5 used his left hand fo the mouse at home, as I do, and his right hand for the mouse at school!! Merry

For years after I got married Yorkshire Water called me mr. Hammy, my wife has been calling me hamster ever since. My cousin Dawn Birch tells me that Natwest insisted on calling her Dawn Bitch. I don't think she banks with them anymore. David

Olde Crone Clockmender's sitter sounds like an old occupation to me! I think the majority of certs in my possession have something wrong with them. I have one where the bridegroom's name is recorded as Garrance Chapman, although he himself signed his name correctly as Gerrance on the cert. I remember when I got married I was very particular to check that the details on my cert were right. nell

Christine I have given up trying to get my Bank to correct this - my name is even wrongly spelled on my cheque-book.What's worse, they never seem to notice that I have signed a cheque with a name spelled differently to the one printed on it! When I had a business, I had the brilliant idea of calling it 'The Clockmender's Sister'. This completely floored my Bank, who had several goes at it: Clockmenders Sitter Clothmenders Sister and the one I finished up with: Clockmenders Sister Clockmenders Sister. As you say, how can they possibly get it so WRONG? Olde Crone

How do banks get to be so incompetent?! And they even get offended if you point out that an account in credit means the money doesn't actually belong to them but to the account-holder. Christine

Today I received five items of post. Four of them had spelled my surname wrong.One is from my Bank. Olde Crone

GRO/ONS surpasses itself. I received the copy marriage cert in the post this morning! Given that I put in the order about midnight 27-28 Sept, I reckon that's not bad at all. Their original predicted despatch date was 4 October. I've looked at the cert and can see that, if they looked only at the record of the name in the main Bride's Name box, they may well have thought it was OU in the middle of the name. The only thing is that the transcription of the bride's signature and of all the other instances of the name (Bride's Father, one witness, the clergyman - who, from the info on the form is clearly the same person as Bride's Father) are all more clearly EN. My father wrote his Es in much the same way as you see in 16th/17th century writing: like a C with a cross stroke, but with the swirl of the script turning the C into something more like an O. It will be interesting to find out if they correct the index! Christine

I have recently received a small box of old papers and photos from the estate of a deceased relative. When the husband of this relative died in 1995 she must have applied for a copy of her marriage certificate. I had a chuckle when I noticed they had mispelt his name Instead of Sylvester they had written 'Silverstone'!! someone with a racing background maybe? netti

What a wonderful story!! .....and you can even ''blame'' your own father - marvellous!! I can see this is a story you will be telling all your friends and relations in the years to come. Gave me a big smile :o)) and at this time in the morning, that ain't easy!! Merry

We needed a copy of our marriage cert and my birth cert (which are currently in a 'safe place') so, realising that, with 2 certs to buy, it would be cheaper to buy 1837Online units to look up the references first, I did just that. I found the birth ref at the second attempt: overseas RAF turned out to be Army. Looked for the marriage ref by using my own name and couldn't find it! - I know when we married - I was there! So I looked under my husband's name. After 30 years, I discover he must have married another woman when I wasn't looking... the spouse surname had OU in the middle where I had EN! No wonder I couldn't find it. Presumably they couldn't read my father's writing... He it was who took the service and made the entry in the register. So it's not just copperplate script which confuses the transcribers. Christine