Can you solve this middle name conundrum?
QMy granddaughter is a descendant of William A Mortimer. We have been fortunate to make contact with another descendant Kim Nishimura, who lives in Canada, but have been unable to agree on his middle name and therefore his true origins.
Kim’s father (now deceased) investigated the family tree some years ago and concluded that William’s middle name was ‘Arnell’, and that he was born near Bradford to Joseph Mortimer and Jane Stead. However, if William’s middle name really was ‘Arnell’, then my own research suggests that he was born in Sunderland in 1857 to Joseph and Grace Arnell instead.
Conversely, Kim believes that her father was wrong about the Arnell name altogether, and that his middle name was actually ‘Arnold’. Her view is backed up by the fact that this is the name William used when signing the marriage register.
William sadly died of exposure on the streets of Derby on Christmas Day 1891, having done too much drinking the night before. He was only 35 at the time, and both his death certificate and articles in the local newspaper state that his middle name was ‘Arnold’.
The case would appear to be closed, but out of the offspring for whom we have been able to trace marriage certificates, five clearly name their father ‘Arnell’ and only one as ‘Arnold’. Further evidence also suggests the former over the latter. Can you confirm which name is correct, and where William
really came from? Martin Cobham A Having had a good look at records on ancestry.co.uk and findmypast. co.uk, it seems to me that William Arnell Mortimer and William Arnold Mortimer were one and the same person. Surname dictionaries list ‘Arnell’ as a variation of ‘Arnold’, and William and his family seem to have used the two names interchangeably. I found a Royal Navy service record for a William Arnell Mortimer, who was born on 4 September 1857 in Co Durham at Monkwearmouth, which is part of Sunderland. If you search the General Register Office birth index at www.gro.gov.uk, you
will see that it gives his mother’s maiden name as Arnell.
In the 1861 and 1871 censuses, the Sunderland William was with his parents Joseph and Grace in Ledbury, Herefordshire, and Halifax, Yorkshire, respectively. William’s service record shows that he deserted from the Navy at Portsmouth on 26 March 1875, just five days before the marriage of William Arnold Mortimer and Agnes Keeling in Derby. It’s possible that he deserted because he couldn’t get permission to marry. I could find no sign of a William Arnold Mortimer before 1875.
Although the articles about William’s death in 1891 in the Derby Daily Telegraph,
Sheffield Evening Telegraph and Star and Sheffield Independent all give his middle name as ‘Arnold’, he is named William Arnell Mortimer in a short death notice in the Derby Mercury.
When William’s children Frederick Leonard, Grace Edith and Lillian Hannah married in 1902, 1905 and 1906 respectively, their father is named ‘William Arnell Mortimer’ in their marriage records. Interestingly, in the record of the marriage of William Arnell Mortimer’s older brother, Frederick Leonard Mortimer, in Bradford in 1877, his father is named as Joseph ‘Arnold’ Mortimer. One of the witnesses to this marriage was named ‘E Arnell’.
Grace Mortimer is listed as a widow in 1881, living with (and the aunt of ) William and Ellen Spencer. In the General Register Office marriage index, William Henry Spencer is shown as marrying Ellen Arnold in Q4 1879. Was this the ‘E Arnell’ who witnessed Frederick Leonard Mortimer’s marriage?