What IS her name - Topey, Hopey or Topsy?

Question

I have a girl in my family tree who, throughout her short life, had three different names, according to official records.

She was -

TOPEY on her birth certificate

HOPEY in the 1891 census

TOPSY on her death certificate

I'm leaning towards TOPEY as the name her parents intended for her, because I can understand how you could get both HOPEY (from the census official not hearing them correctly), and TOPSY (from misreading the E for an S on paperwork). Also I suppose TOPSY could be a nickname for TOPEY. But I don't understand how you could hear HOPEY and come up with TOPSY, or vice versa.

So, although it won't change the fact that I have three names for her, which do you think is the more likely? My family tree software doesn't like multiple first names or slashes (/), so I need to put the most likely, and write the other two as her nicknames

Unfortunately I can't ask anyone in my family, as she may have been my dad's great aunt, but he never even realised she had existed!

Answer 1

Hi, well I went to Olympia, London last weekend, the big show called " Who Do You Think You Are. They were holding workshops, I went to one taken by Jeanne Bunting - called They're not there: Using the online census indexes.  

The problem that you are having, is quite common - apparently years ago when the census was taken - a person would go round to each house and take the details - this of course was done by hand.  The records would be collected and these would then go off to someone else to transcribe into the big census book.  This is where the handwriting was sometimes very hard for the person to understand and mistakes would be made.  The person would put what he thought was the correct name - apparently the letter q was often put as the number 2.

Jeanne gave us a sheet of helpful tips, touching on problems like yours.  - Her email address is [e-mail] - but she did tell us that she would be changing is soon.  So hurry if you want a copy - very helpful advice.

Answer 2

UK answer.

I would go with the birth certificate name if I were you. It does happen quite a lot actually. My husbands gr/gr/gr/ grandad was registered as wait for it....Zephaniah, in the 1851 census he was Zackariah, and on the 1861 census he was Zeffany. I used the birth certificate name and was able to trace him all the way up till his death. Fortunately  all of the first born males were given this name, as it  was totally unique that line was a doddle to trace.

Answer 3

Go with Birth certificate.  What does her grave stone say?

Answer 4

I'd have to agree that the birth certificate is the best likelihood since her parents would have provided the info.  Census is notorious for errors; and death certs are based on what the FAMILY knew as usual.. which a person could have changed, over the course of their lifetime.

That reminds me, of course.. my own birth certificate uses the spelling Windy, and a different middle name from what I had always known from childhood.  I hate what is on my birth cert, but it has to be according to what mom wanted. Yuck.

btw, does recent avatar change for you, indicate congrats being in order?

Answer 5

I would think that she was registered Topey at birth (although I've never heard of it as a given name, or even Hopey for that matter !) but that she was possibly known as Topsy by the people around her when her death was registered.