Help needed reading old document!

[sonjadog]

I am looking through some old family documents and came across this certificate. Can anyone tell me what the first names of the two fathers are? I can’t work them out. Thanks!

Perhaps George and James?

That's what I read them as too 😀

Bottom one James.
Other one, Eric or George

I thought James but then does it not end -se?

I read the lower one as Samuel!

I see George for the first one now, thanks!

I think the bottom is James and then an initial like Hunter S Thompson.

The top looks like it could be George but could you show the rest of the certificate because the clue could be an easy decipher of another word and the pattern in the writing.

George Richard Timston?

Lower name looks like James C Hannah.

Upper names is harder to decipher- something Riches Thomaspon? Which seems like a spelling mistake..?

Think it's James C, isn't it?

My mum used to decipher old documents for transferring to microfiche, she had to spend a while learning the writing style of each scribe, so you knew most of the ways they wrote their lower case s, etc. It's harder to work out in isolation.

James and George

George Richard Thomson and Samuel Hanna

What does the first profession say? The second word starts with the same letter as the second name does

Civil Service is the first occupation. I look at this sort of thing every day and find reading it really easy - it's familiarity. The more you see a S written that way, the easier it gets.

And yes - that's the first rule of decoding. Build a letter sheet with all examples of upper case and lower case letters.

Oh the surname of the first one is I think beginning with Turs... - the occupation of the second is farmer, and the R is written the same way in both.

I think the second name is James C, then surname is Ham....

Married by licence, so not in a church of England.

Given that the top says "Co Derry" it's pretty likely they were not married in England at all!!

Not in England, no.

The surnames are Thompson and Hanna. I know that from family history elsewhere.

It does look like Thompson is misspelt Thomspon!

George Richard Thompson Civil Service Post Office
Samuel Hanna Farmer or maybe (but I don’t really think so) could be Farrier

If the answer is "civil Service" then does that get us back to Samuel, rather than James [initial]?

George and Samuel

(I've had to decipher lots of these types of document)

It is most definitely NOT a capital J at the start of the second name. Honestly, I would bet good money and my professional reputation on it being Samuel.

You could well be right!

Hanna was definitely a farmer.

I phoned my Mum and she says the name Samuel Hanna rings a bell, so I think that is it! It isn’t her family but she was with my Dad for over 60 years so knew a lot about his ancestors.

Thanks for the help!

Entirely irrelevant here, but you can get married by licence in a church.

(In fact, I did. H was living in Scotland and they Didn't Do Banns in the general way of things. The most straightforward solution ended up me going to the diocesan office and swearing an oath, upon which they issued me with a licence.)

Farmer Hanna is definitely Samuel.