Family Historian User Group

I wonder if anyone could help?  I have a growing number of ladies in my family tree where I only know their given name.  These are usually obtained from census returns, being the spouses of my male ancesters.
I like to tidy things up and have a persons full name where possible, and also to allow me a new line of research.
The earlier GRO indexes do not provide a spouses surname, so a search of these is impractical.
Before 1837 one has parish records of course, but my ancesters have, inconveniently, come from all over the UK, Cumberland, Yorkshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Essex and London to name only the most common, so visits to the various local record offices would prove to be be very expensive indeed.
I have, through Ancestry, access to Pallot's marriage index, but this only covers part of the country.
Some parish records, I know, have been transcribed and are available on the internet, but these are few, as far as I know.
The IGI records from the LDS site are helpfull, but these are transcripts, and I am never sure how complete they are.
I would be very pleased if anyone could tell me how they go about establishing these surnames, or any suggestions as to other avenues of enquiry.

Thanks in advance.

ID:3493

The FFHS database which is quite extensive is now on http://www.findmypast.com

I have had good luck searching this in the past.

Obviously post 1837 you can purchase birth certificates which will show the Mothers maiden name and later again you can simply use the GRO births index as the mothers name is included in the index.

A trick I've used successfully many times is to find the GRO marriage record on FreeBMD and then look at others on the same page.

Because there are only two marriages per register page you'll have only two people of the opposite sex to the one you already know. Combined with the census information that you started with you'll be able to see which is the right spouse. Unless, of course, both people on the page have the same given names [grin].

Some of the marriage index pages have more than 2 couples, sometimes up to 8. And be a bit careful if there's only one or two, it may be that others on the same page have been mis-transcribed.

If you know the wife's given name, place of birth and age from a census after they're married, it's sometimes effective and relatively quick to search the previous census with just that information and see how many Marys (for example) were born in that place at that time. If you're lucky, only one will match the other names on the marriage index page. If there just a few, it might be worth seeing if you can find out who they married and eliminate them.

Another trick we use is to look for anyone with an unusual name on the marriage index in the following census, and see if you can pair up the other couples on the page, then identify yours by elimination. Or try each combination of male/female from the marriage page in the following census using the Spouses Given Name box on the census search.

Another thing worth remembering is that marriage and birth indexes often have middle names that are not on the censuses. See if you can find a birth reference for that pair of given names in the registration district for her place of birth.

Have you tried this site for records post 1837 http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/index.php - I've found it useful as it goes down to sub-registration district level and tells you where a marriage took place. It covers some of the areas you are interested in.
Hope this helps.

Thanks to all for the replies. I now have some new methods to approach this line of enquiry.

Roy

One of the US magazines I subscribe to, Family Tree Magazine (not related to the Family Tree Maker software), has posted this in their blog in honor of Women's History Month:

For help finding women, see our list of best records, article on search strategies, and tips on discovering maiden names. The February 2008 Family Tree Magazine has our research guide (sold out on paper, but a digital downloads is available).

Blog entry (with links to the appropriate places on their site):
http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insi ... tory+.aspx

The references to records may be US-centric, but the tips and search strategies could be of use.

Hope this helps.

Jan

One additional method is to use the data in the census where she is married and then use just the forename and yob and place of birth in the first census after her year of birth.

Then you get a short list which can be whittled down by searching each child and eliminating deaths and marriages to other people.

I use this when either there is no marriage record or several 'possibles'.