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!

DD did a course on reading old writing as part of her history degree-

she asked what the approx date was?

Second name Lawrence?

I would estimate mid-late 19th century, possibly pre-Irish partition in 1922. It's most definitely NOT Lawrence though.

You would think someone trained in reading old documents would be able to see the capital S as in Civil Service and estimate a rough era. 🙄

James E Hanna is what I see.

Yeah Lawrence was my completely untrained guess 🙄

And I sent DD a screenshot of just the names and no context/rest of form so a complete fail by me

God that's hard

Top one at a guess George Richard Thompson

Second something Harris he was a farmer

James C Harris?

Once you get your "eye in" it makes reading this sort of stuff much easier. I can read Victorian stuff no bother, it's the tudor Secretary Hand I struggle with! If you look at the attached image from the same era you'll see a similar way of forming the upper case S and J - Jonathan Bradbury, Samuel Smith.

George Richard Thompson

George Richard Thompson and Samuel Hanna.

The document is from 1914, so pre-partition. Here is a wider photo:

Thompson’s job I think is civil servant and then port officer under. Which would seem a likely occupation in Derry at that time.

Parish Office??

Agree with port. Most of the transatlantic ships from Glasgow called at Derry (or Moville, which is further up the Foyle estuary and now in Co Donegal) before heading out to New York.

Would be worth having a look on an Irish genealogy site and going back a step to say bride and grooms birth or baptism. UK sites will also be useful.

www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/

Also 🇬🇧 GRO index for years around either or both of their births. Good luck.

George Richard for the top and James for the bottom?

Could it be Post Office rather than Port? There is a George Thompson in Gobnascale in the 1911 Census who is a Post Office Superintendent.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Londonderry/Londonderry_No__5_Urban/Gobnascale__Pt__of/605705/

If you click on the link and then click on the 'show all information' box it gives his job etc.

That could be him. I checked the other information I have and his wife is called Elizabeth. The odd thing is that my great-grandfather is not listed among his offspring there, so which he surely would have been. Unless maybe it was only those who were resident at that time and he was elsewhere?

Census only records who is in the house on that night. If your grandfather was staying with relatives or camping with the scouts he wouldn’t be there.

can’t look as I’m on my phone but the 1911 census usually has a column for total children born and children still living so you should be able to work out what’s going on - if they’ve declared 5 kids and only 4 listed in census for example,

I just had another look - 17 children born (that poor woman!!), 14 living, only 8 at home on the census form plus one nephew.

If your Gt Grandfather is the one who is getting married in your post his profession is soldier, so he may very easily have been stationed elsewhere at this time?

He would have been 19, I think, when that census was taken so could well have been elsewhere. He was a teacher before WW1 so was maybe away working elsewhere. He joined the army in 1914 and was killed in 1918. I have the postcards he sent home from the war still, so have always been curious about him.

17 children though! That poor woman!

That's lovely that you have the postcards - it makes them seem so real doesn't it? I'm on Ancestry so if you want anything else looked up for you just ask - feel free to PM if you'd rather keep your info private of course.

Thank you! I will let you know if I have any questions.

The postcards are very special as he talks a lot about how much he is looking forward to spending time with his baby (my grandmother) after the war, but he didn’t survive. He never saw her.

If Irish could be Jamsie