Greatx2grandparents and greatx3 grandparents: name question.?

Question

My Greatx2 Granma, I have seen her marriage license, childrens birth certificate and death certif. but I still have no idea her birth year or her parents. Her name was Margaret but her middle and last names vary from Isabel(le), Isabella and Luestrang(e), Lestrange, Luestraing. There are other variants of the same last name too but I think you get the idea. She moved to New Zealand where I am from in 1874, having gone from Cobh/Queenstown, Ireland to Liverpool 8 days later (on same ship) and then in 77 days they ended up in NZ. She was listed as 24 years, from County Dublin, there was noone with her same last name onboard. When she got married and had a child, in Jun 1883, she was 30 and born in Havre, France. On her death certif. in Oct 1899, she was 48 and born in Dublin. Everywhere her parents were "Unknown", why could this be?

How could she not know her birthplace or who her parents were? And where should I go from here? Has anyone else found this with an ancestor? Please help!

Answer 1

Being poor and a woman, she was probably illiterate. They didn't waste money schooling women back in the 1800's. So, she probably didn't know exactly how to spell her last name or exactly when she was born.

You are assuming they asked her when she was born and where, for those certificates. They didn't for the death cert, that's for sure. They may not for the birth cert either; they could have asked the husband while she writhed in post-partum agony or hobbled around the kitchen, baking.

"Le Harve" was a huge port city; hundreds of thousands of people left from it for the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa . . .

People in the UK would pack a lunch and take channel packets, small, cheap boats, to Le Havre; Europeans would take the train. (Irish would take a ferry across the Irish Sea, a train to a channel port, and a channel packet.) Then they'd all get on a big steam-ship and head west across the Atlantic or east through the Suez Canal for Australia. It was a like taking a shuttle bus to the big international airport and getting on a 747.

I'd bet someome mis-understood the question on that one and put down where she sailed from, not where she was born. Just a guess; there may have been a price on her head or an angry ex-lover who she wanted to throw off the track.

Bell, Belle, Isabel, Isabella, Isabelle . . . all pretty common variations. Ann, Anne, Anna, Annah are easy, because most search engines support "Ann*" wild-carding. Ellen / Helen and Bell* / Isab* are tough because you can't cover all the bases with one wild card query.

I've found my Pack ancestors as Pack, Peck, Pock, Pugh, Park, Pork and Pak. I suspect the variations mount with each additional letter in a surname. That's common; it is why most of us use Soundex when we have the chance.