Different name than husband on birth certificates ?

[KangarooKenny]

I have some relatives born 1907 onwards. I know that they are not the children of the husband as he had left the home and moved away.
On the birth certificates the wife has changed the first name to the man we think is the father, yet used hers and husband’s surname. How did she manage this ?

Unless someone’s done a 23 and me, and knows for certain that they are related. I did one, and discovered my father isn’t my father and I have absolutely no idea who is because I’ve nobody on my results closer than a 3rd cousin on either side, apart from my mother and my now half brother.

I'm astonished my mother did a test to be honest, but then my father has passed away so I guess she no longer worries.

It makes research quite tricky too because you have cases like my great great grandad who is variously on his children's birth certificates as his actual name, his actual name spelled incorrectly and then his known by name for several of his DC (and his actual name and known by name were completely different because every male in my family for 200 years was called John and they had to use middle names or nicknames to differentiate).

So you start looking for John Smith and can't find him because everybody called him Alf, including his mate Thomas the registrar, who just scribbled it down without thinking or even knowing it wasn't his real name in the first place.

It certainly would have been the case all those years ago. An ancestor of mine was unmarried at the time of her dc's birth in the late 1800's, and she gave her father's first name as the baby's father. The registrar probably assumed she was married, and when asked the father's name, she simply said 'George'.

I'd suggest testing again with Ancestry, @CoorieInByTheFire . The 23 and Me database is primarily North American and that's why you're getting such distant matches - your common ancestor is several generations back and probably emigrated in the 19th century.

Ancestry is more widely used in the UK and western Europe and you are more likely to get closer hits. No guarantees though, the paternal side of my family has been in the Scottish Borders for centuries and I have very few matches. People in the UK who know they have always lived in the UK and are secure about their roots have less desire to spend £100 on a test than people from the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand who know their family has only been there 2 or 3 generations.

I’ve actually done both, and the results were the same. I did them for the health side, the ancestry side of it was very unexpected as I always thought I looked like my father, but I have a lot of cousins, he was from a very big family, and none of them showed up. He wasn’t the nicest person and I don’t really know how I feel about it.

Have you logged onto Ancestry recently? It now sorts the matches into maternal and paternal which is useful.

No I’ve not, thanks that’s really useful!