ARGH!! Family Research??? Dead end? how do people get passed it??

Question

ok I have my grandfathers birth certificate it says Name - John Thomas Moore,

mothers name - Maud Moore formally Hodder,

Father James Alfred Moore

Date 14th March 1927

I have looked through all ancestry website and other people have tried helping me looking for mauds and james' marriage certificate. no luck

I rang the GRO place and she said they charge £11 to look, which is great I would of paid, but she said all she does is the same as me, and if im positive I looked through it all and found nothing, then neither will she,

so how am I meant to get passed this? the women on the phone and some one on here said maud hodder might not of even married james, thats even worse! so now I know no dates, only ruff places, how am I meant to find anything on these two people???? I canbt ask relatives as they didnt even no that side of the family.

Answer 1

Sounds like one heck of a brick wall.  You might want to consider checking the birth indexes for a few years either side of John Thomas Moore's birth and see if there were any more (sorry, awful pun!) siblings with the maiden name Hodder.  If the family moved around a bit, this might give an indication as to the location/year the marriage was more likely to have taken place.  I'm not saying that will help, but it might give you a bit more information to work with!

As someone already said the Ancestry indexes aren't 100% complete, so when you search keep an eye out for any quarters that aren't linked to.  If you note down what they are, I've found that then searching for that quarter specifically with a surname close to the one you're looking for will get you onto the pages, and then using guesswork you can get to the page you want.  It's a long shot, but it's worth a try!

Maud Hodder has the more unusual name of the pair, so personally I'd focus my research on her and see if that maybe leads you to her hometown (women traditionally married in their parish, although it's by no means a set-in-stone rule) and you could always check the parish registers, although why there's be no marriage certificate is beyond me!

As the GRO said, James and Maud might have been very unhelpful and not have even married... in which case you may need to get quite creative with your research!

Oh - also (and this one really IS a long shot) but if Maud's maiden name was Hodder and she married previously and was widowed (or divorced - but highly unlikely for that time period) and then married your James, she might have married under her married name, ie. Maud Winters or something like that.  Might be worth bearing in mind, just in case!

Best of luck :)

Answer 2

Two things to share with you-

I have had clerks tell me a record did not exist.. then I searched for myself, and found it.  Many times, the person looking has no interest in genealogy (thinks it is frivolous).. or the printing is bad, and it gets overlooked.

The other issue is that you are close to what I call the "1890 hump".   In American terms.. the 1890 census was lost to fire. Things after 1900 are what I think of as recent, 1880 or before, seem to open up.  Translate this into UK terms.. your census is open to 1901, but your need is so close to that.  Once you get to a certain turning point, the historical records open up, I think.  Right now, the census that you need, is not open.

Just stay positive.. some records are like that.. seems like it takes forever to find. Then, you find another record, and it gives the clue or lead you want.  Or, as suggested, it may not have existed to begin with.

Answer 3

I have just looked on the birth indices to see if I could see anything for you - The only James Moores' that I could find were both registered with the mother's maiden name being MOORE.  One from Paddington and one from Portsmouth.

Sometimes these records showed the correct maiden name of the mother, but if one of the records above was/is correct, this doesn't appear to be the case this time.

Do you have any idea what age Maud was when James was born?  This might help.

Answer 4

I'm sure I read somewhere once that Ancestry's quarterly indexes aren't actually complete and there are still bugs and some quarters are missing or misindexed.   Some quarters don't return any results at all, though the pages do exist somewhere.  They were in Beta and free to access for ages, but the bugs are still there.  Make sure you try and search for both the groom and bride.  Hopefully at least one will be indexed correctly.  That doesn't mean the GRO won't be able to find a copy, especially if you have been looking at Ancestry.  There ARE still indexing errors on this site.  You might have to go through all the "H" and "M" pages one by one just to make sure they are coming up correctly.

Other possibilities to consider - the military indexes, esp. if the father was in the army (you'll have to try findmypast for these overseas and consular lists).  Also maybe try the Scottish registers - maybe they eloped to Gretna Green or something to get married - scotlandspeople.gov.uk.  And yes, they may not have married, especially if one of them was already wed to someone who was still alive - that would have been bigamy, and not everyone could have afforded divorce.  Unlike today, people back then didn't have to produce evidence of their ID every five minutes.  If they said they were married, the registrar would have took their word for it.  It may just have been a common-law arrangement rather than a legal one.