Something between maiden name and married name?

[AprilShowerslastforHours]

I’ve spent the afternoon on Ancestry and whilst I can link up to lots of people on my father’s side my mother’s is harder. It has taken a while to find my great-grandmother’s surname and, having found it, I’m confused. Her name on marriage is ‘Aarons’, her maiden name is ‘Knight’, but does it not look like there’s another name listed as well? Cacn anyone help?

Looks like Hamish Aarons, formerly Moody.

Edit: can see now it's Harriet formerly Moody. She may have been married before marrying Aarons - is his name Judah?

Harriet?

Is her name Harriet?

To me it reads:

Judah Aarons
Cigarettemaker

Harriet Aarons
formerly Moody
M.S. Knight

1900, August 18th
Tradeston Glasgow

"formerly Moody" = she was married to someone before Judah Aarons, giving her the surname Moody.

"M.S. Knight" = maiden surname Knight, as in, the surname she was born with.

Does look like Moody.

We had similar for DH's great granny - she was widowed young and remarried.

I read

Judah Aarons
cigarette maker
Harriet Aarons
formerly Moody
M. S. (maiden surname?) Knight

Was Judah her second husband?

Thank you all.

I realised a while later that it probably meant she had married before but I’d never heard that from my mother. I also wasn’t sure what the middle surname was so I’m glad you all said the same thing.

I had him as Jack up to this point, but it looks like he was originally Judah Auerhaan and he anglicised his name at some point. The birth certificate for Esther is correct at I've seen the original. I'm going to have to do a lot more digging around.

Late to this thread but the date at the bottom of the birth record - 18 August 1900 - is the marriage date of the parents. Scottish records are brilliant for this. I did a quite index search on Scotland's People and turned up the attached for their marriage confirming the names as Judah AARONS and Harriet MOODY or KNIGHT - again this confirms that Harriet has been married before marrying Judah, first husband almost definitely died as divorce practically unheard of.

Names scream Jewish heritage, the Jewish population in Glasgow skyrocketed in the 1890-1910 period, many families used it as a stopping off point often for many years as they worked to save money to pay their passage to North America. Cigarette making is a very common occupation among this group. The Scottish Jewish Archive Centre is absolutely fantastic for researching Jewish links and their volunteers are super helpful. https://www.sjac.org.uk/

Please feel free to message me if you'd like more help/info - I have a lot of experience researching in this area (although I'm not Jewish myself).

Marriage certificates would normally state whether someone was a spinster, bachelor or widowed (and less so in years gone by, divorced), so perhaps send away for that.

Doing online research is only the starting point really - the original records and actual certificates give you much more to go on.

Scotland's People allows instant access to post 1855 birth, death and marriage records. Digitised versions of the original records. No need to send away for anything - unless it's a birth less than 100 years ago, marriage less than 75 or death less than 50.

You don't necessarily need to, but I quite like to actually have the paperwork in my hand. 🙂

The only time that I received more info on a paper record than was available online was when we were trying to solve a puzzle over a marriage which had taken place in the 1930s.

I sent off for the marriage cert for the first marriage. On the reverse, there was an official stamp to say that a divorce decree had been granted in the High Court of Edinburgh. (Highly unusual for a working man to obtain that in those days...but by then we knew that there was ample evidence that the first wife had committed adultery)

Joining the chorus of "Moody". I have access to Ancestry and FMP so feel free to contact me if you'd like some more research.

@WearyAuldWumman That's really interesting. Unfortunately, I only have the one Sottish ancestor so far, and we're talking circa 1800 for him. Made his way down the east coast as far as Essex, and from there into London.

@YellowPixie - thank you so very much, that was very interesting. Judah’s parents were both from the Netherlands but married in London. Judah and Harriet lived in Glasgow for a few years where they had their two eldest children then moved back to the East End of London. I’ll definitely follow up the SJAC link as I know have links to Glasgow through DP and it would be fascinating to find out more about my ancestors’ lives there.

I’m not sure which of Judah’s parents it was who came from a family of diamond merchants. I’d love to find out and claim my fortune! 😂

It’s Harriet who most interests me, and she’s the one I can’t track. Don’t suppose you have any way of trawling Irish records (or @TeabySea)? She was from County Cork (I assume - I know Cork comes into it somewhere and as I can’t find her anywhere else I’m assuming she’s Irish). If I’m remembering rightly Moody must have been Jewish also as I’m sure my mum said that was the reason she left Ireland as she was Catholic and the family didn’t approve.

If you PM me with the info you have on the person you want investigating I'll do my best to check out what I can find.
I'm more likely to remember (meno brain fog) if I see a message 😁

In case you haven’t seen it already, according to FreeBMD Harriet Alice Knight married Henry Charles Moody in Bethnal Green in the last quarter of 1893. Would that be your Harriet?

These kinds of threads are what Mumsnet is good for ❤️