Genealogy Chat

I have a birth certificate which states that the mother is Emma Yeats(maiden name) at the moment i can't find a Emma Yeats,but there seems to be a number of Yates in the area. My question is how correct on the birth certificates were name spellings. This is in 1891. Many thanks Kirsty x

Hi Kirsty, I would say pretty good,,but have you tried ::Yates as well?? Kay.

How correct is anything? It is quite possible that the registrar wrote down what he thought he heard and the informant didn't check the details. I myself have come across someone registered as Garvey when born and becoming Garvie in later life. nell

Hi Kirsty I think it could be either. I thought the names would have been fixed by that time and then found that granddad signed Downs on his marriage cert in 1902 then after he died in the 1920s his wife remarried and signed Downes on her marriage cert. Heather

Thanks everyone, was coming to the conclusion that it may have been a spelling error somewhere, especially as the errors i have come across on census! i'm still new to this reasearching so wasn't sure if spelling errors could happen on birth certs etc. Kirsty:)

Kirsty Spelling errors occur all over the place. The fact that a certificate or a census entry is 'official' doesn't mean it is accurate, especially when no one checks it. My own grandfather's place of birth is wrongly spelt on his death cert - the registrar didn't look at a gazetteer or a map or atlas - he just wrote down what he thought my uncle said. This was in 1972. I was just listening to the News Quiz on the radio this morning and they were talking about new information to be asked on the next census - apparently the last census asked for religion and quite a lot of entries returned said 'Jedi knight'. Take everything with a pinch of salt. nell

There is also Yeates with an e.