Who When Where

It can be fairly difficult to identify people's nicknames - if any. We might guess that Robert was known as Bob, but he might have been Robbie. One good source that I'm looking at right now, is a report of a funeral in 1915 where the cards on the wreaths provide a selection of family nicknames. All you have to do(!) is then decide which "Gertie and Florrie" is referred to by that particular card....

By the way, don't forget that a woman may be referred to by the intials of her husband - in this instance "Mrs R Cadman" is the wife of Richard Cadman, while their wreath appears to be labelled, much less formally, "Dick and Gertie".

Good point! One line of my own family was never known by a given name during life - Pat was really Florence, Doris was born Daisy, Margaret was known as Rose and Ellen was always Nancy and that’s just the females.

I’m reading a novel set in Tudor times and have been reminded just how many variations of Elizabeth there are - Eliza, Lizzie, Bess, Beth, Meg to name just a few. Well, it makes life interesting for us researchers, doesn’t it?

Norfolk Nan wrote: ↑02 Sep 2021, 22:16 ... Doris was born Daisy, ...

Not sure about Daisy, but certainly I've seen instances where the registered / baptised name looks like a nickname and the person in question has later gone by the more formal version of their registered / baptised name.

I’ve just remembered the few old photos that my late father left. Most were annotated but with nicknames like Titch and Ginger - not much help to me when I wanted to identify everyone. Sadly, I only saw these pictures after he’d gone but I did find one reproduced on someone’s family tree. She was a DNA match and luckily could put some actual names to those old faces.

Yes, it’s funny how nicknames/Petnames given to a child sometimes stick with them for life. I have a cousin who was known as “Squib” as a child, but it remained with her throughout her life, her actual name was Gladys, Not forgetting my nan’s sister Ellen Caroline, who was known by her second name Caroline or her other sister Emily Jemima who was known as Nin

AdrianBruce wrote: ↑02 Sep 2021, 23:17 Not sure about Daisy, but certainly I've seen instances where the registered / baptised name looks like a nickname and the person in question has later gone by the more formal version of their registered / baptised name.

I’ve seen that recently too, when a child christed “Fanny” changed to Frances as she got older!

Daisy became Doris because her partner thought it more suitable. He was that sort of chap...

My father always called my mother by her maiden name initials: LEN. A great aunt was Betty. It wasn't until the 1911 census was released that I found she was really Dorothy.

In my family I have the following,

Agnes (Nancy)
Janet(Jessie)
Elisabeth(betty)
Mary(may)
Pauline(polly)

The one that takes the cake though is my mum's uncle. He was known as Dod.His actual name
was George.
We scots do make it hard for ourselves.
Grace

I have a couple of Berties, father and son, both registered as Bertie but the baptism register entry for the son (1912) is crossed through and ‘Herbert’ written beside it. Herbert was never used by the family so I think the clerk/vicar took it upon himself to ‘correct’ the record. Wrongly, in this case!