Why can’t I locate my unusually named ancestor?
QMy great grandmother Mary Ann Riley has Thomas Mittrale, shoemaker, named as her father on her 1874 marriage certificate, but I can’t find him. My grandfather was known as William, but named Alma on his birth certificate – which gives his mother’s maiden name as Riley.
She was born Mary Ann Riley in 1854 in Selby, Yorkshire, and her husband was Joseph Richardson, born 1848 in Thorne. Mary Ann’s parents, on her birth certificate, were William Riley and Bridget Flynn.
I have been using ancestry.co.uk for many years, but can’t find a shoemaker called Thomas Mittrale, or any birth year. Trixie Farndon
AIt often helps to look for information on a relative’s siblings, eight of whom I found in the 1881–1901 censuses. The free birth index on the General Register Office site ( www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ certificates) gives the mother’s maiden surname of William/Alma, and his sisters as Riley or a variation of that name. For William’s brothers, however, the mother’s maiden name is shown as M’Vale (for Joseph junior), McVail (for John) and McVale (for Tom George).
Why the two maiden surnames? I can only imagine that when the informant (Joseph senior, Mary Ann or someone else?) was asked for the mother’s maiden surname, they supplied their own mother’s maiden surname.
It can’t have been Joseph, as the index record for his birth gives his mother’s maiden name as Dennis. That ties in with a marriage record (on findmypast.co.uk) for George Richardson and Elizabeth Dennis in Thorne in the March quarter of 1848. George Richardson is named as Joseph’s father in 1874. Judging by that record, Mary Ann’s maiden surname was McVale or something similar. In the GRO death index, I found entries for a Thomas McVale in 1876 (aged 65) and a Mary McVale in 1899 (aged 67). Both deaths took place in Howden Registration District, which is where Joseph and Mary Ann lived from the 1870s to the 1890s, and where the births of all of their children were registered (except Joseph junior’s in Thorne).
The 1851 census has Thomas and Mary McVale in Birkenhead, and there is a Thomas McVale (mother’s maiden name also McVale) born in late 1851 in nearby Liverpool. I also found a Mary Ann McKail (mother’s maiden name Grogan) born in Selby in 1854. If I were you, I would send for some of these birth and death records.
Alan Stewart