Genealogy Chat

Hi - has anyone any idea how I can find information concerning change of surname (by deed poll or just 'being called by a different surname').
Surely this would have had to be done 'legally' to ensure relevant pensions etc would be paid?

You can call yourself anything you like as long as it is not for fraudulent reasons. I don't think it has to be done legally.

Kath. x

Hi Susan,we changed our name,you have to do it through a solicitor, not too expensive,for a while everything you do afterwards you have to keep producing the deed,bank details etc,but it gets better and in the end you tend to forget your old name,! you just reminded me! gill

Kaths right as long as your not obtaining money by doing so. gill

Hi - thanks for replying - my query 'goes back' to the 1950/60s - the couple couldn't marry due to a earlier wartime marriage overseas. The pair lived as 'normal married couple' - just wondered whether any legal documents were needed - death of 'Mrs' was registered in her 'married name' as it was not discovered until later that she was not 'legally' married ...........

I think they are likely to have just adopted the name.

My in-laws were in the same position. My father-in-law was married in the 1920's and the marriage broke up but divorce was too expensive and difficult to get. He just lived with my mother-in-law as man and wife and she used his name and registered children's births as if they were married.

Kath. x

Surely when a pension book was issued it would have been in the legal 'given' name and not in the 'adopted' name.. If death was registered in 'adopted' name there would be no recorded documentation to reconcile maiden name birth and death.

I would guess abt a third of people claiming pensions have legally changed their names under common law by just adopting their new name and abandoning their old name without resorting to deed polls. The vast majority of these are women who married. Their is nothing in a marriage ceremony abt changing names.

A deed poll is just a contract with oneself. Mostly, they are contracts that say you're going to use a new name, but they can be abt anything. They can be registered, but only abt 2% were.

I would presume the OAP laws were written giving considerable latitude to administrators regarding documentary evidence. E.g., when the first OAPs were paid 1/1/1909 to 70+ y.o.s, most would not have a b.cert - certainly no one born in Scotland or Ireland, and there's only a very narrow age range for those born in England/Wales that could provide one.

As a general comment abt posts here, there seems to be an odd conception that one's legal name is not the one that one is legally known by, but the name on a b.cert - this is in spite of the fact that a b.cert doesn't specify one's surname - it is only inferred from the parents' surnames which is hardly definitive on the occasions when they're different.

As a practical matter, since authorities love seeing bits of papers, the cheapest way of providing them was to take out an ad in the local paper saying you've changed your name, and buy a few copies of the paper for later use.

I changed my surname by statutary declaration before a commissoner for oaths so that I would have a 'document' for changing my details on bank accounts, PAYE, passport etc.

It cost me about £5. That was 20 years ago. I only did the statutory declaration because of the hassle of needing something 'official' for the sort of situations I described above, there was no actual legal need to do anything in order to assume my new surname.

My mother-in-law had a pension book in her "married" name and her death recorded in her "married" name (hubby and I registered her death). At the time we didn't know that they were not married. We knew hubby's father had been married before but assumed that he had divorced. It was only afterwards that an elderly relative told us that they had never married - which is why I had spent about 5 years looking for a marriage that could not be found!! (we had never seen a wedding photo either).

In the past no one asked for much documentation for anything. I certainly didn't have to produce a birth certificate when I married, and when we registered mother-in-law's death we didn't have to have her birth certificate to prove the information about her birth date - which is why dates on death certificates are often wrong. It depends on how well the informant knew the deceased.

Kath. x

When I went to the Pensions Office in 1981 to cancel my mother's pension, the clerk behind the counter was tactfully telling the young man in front of me that his mother wasn't entitled to a widow's pension as she and his father had never been been legally married. It was obvious that he hadn't been aware of this, because he kept saying that his mother was Mrs XX and his father was Mr XX. I felt very sorry for him.

hi.
my grandad was adopted in c1916 before formal adoptions took place.he was reg by his mother in her name and then given his adopted parents name(no paperwork at all)when he married my nan in 1938 he used his adopted surname and not the surname on his birth cert,
so when my mum was born she took his adopted surname.all done without any legal paper work.x

As has been said on may times before, the information recorded on any certificate is only as good as that provided at the time.

Even today, I believe that it is only for marriages that you need to provide proof of your identity, your residency and of your nationality.

As far as I know, it is not necessary to provide the same level of documentation to register a birth or death.

my son has just had his sons name changed(with his ex girlfriends permission)his son was born after they broke up and his ex didnt know if the child was his or the new boyfriends,the baby was reg in the mothers name until D.N.A was done...as soon as my son knew that the baby was his they wanted to change the name on the cert,my son needed his birth cert,his passport, and his driving licence,before any formal changing of his sons name could be done(and of course he had to be there in person)so its not only marriages tha you have to proof your identity.x :-)

Suzanne - yeah, that's what they say they need, but I doubt it's truly the case - there's just too many people with no passport and driver's licence for that to be the case.

Not that it's relevant, but a friend of mine's brother-in-law failed his driver's test 10 times. He didn't give up, though. He then quit his job and got work as a milkman with Express Diaries, delivering milk carried on an electric float he walked in front of, steering it with a pole connected to the front axle. After 4 months, he took his driver's test on the milk float and passed. This was in the 1960s, and back then, electric milk floats were in the same vehicle class as cars, so he had his driver's licence - he quit the next week. (I never rode in a car with him, though.)

Try entering the name in the London Gazette....online....Google it.....I came across many changes of name whilst researching.....The gazette was one of those papers that name changes were reported in...You never know :-)