I have to confess that I have often been guilty of overlooking the women in my tree, partly because it is simply more compelling to follow the paternal surnames that stretch back through multiple generations, but also because the details of their lives so often went unrecorded, making them much harder, and outwardly less rewarding, to research.
Beyond my grandmothers, almost all that I know about my female ancestors is in relation to their husbands, children or fathers, and once back beyond the statutory registration systems introduced in the mid-19th century, they are all too frequently impossible to trace.
Even establishing a maiden name can prove challenging. In England, they were not recorded in death certificates until 1969, and the column headed “Rank or Profession” typically reads “wife/widow of” followed by the husband’s name and profession. Things are a little easier in Scotland as married women traditionally continued to use their maiden name alongside their husband’s surname, so they can be found in birth, marriage and death records, are often included in census listings or even immortalised in the inscriptions on their gravestones.
Once back into the 18th century, however, the Parish Clerk rarely recorded the mother’s maiden name when her children were baptised, and in many cases she is not named at all. Sometimes, if a community is small enough, with a bit of detective work a birth name can be inferred from marriage or death records, but I currently have ten direct ancestors in my tree who I know only by their Christian name despite my best efforts. This blog post is for them.
Sleuthing Notes 