Identity theft?

[spudqueen]

When I started looking into my family history I was given some stuff from when my Auntie (who died) had looked into it, 25 years earlier. In the stuff from my Auntie was a letter from her Auntie (who was getting on a bit then) with some details of her family, including her fathers date of birth. I immediately got a copy of his birth certificate, John Collinge, born 2nd February 1857, and started looking at his parents etc. However I couldn't find John Collinges marriage certificate, nor was he on the 1861 or 1871 census with his parents. I found him on the 1881 census with his wife and a daughter I knew nothing about. When I ordered the daughters birth (and death) certificate she was called Florence Duffy Collinge and her father was John Duffy Collinge. I then found the marriage certificate for John Collinge, but he wasn't calling himself Collinge, he was calling himself Duffy and his father was Peter Duffy. on the 1861 and 1871 there are a Peter Duffy, his wife Sarah and son John born circa 1857. Very strange I thought, as I have his birth certificate, but then looked for a death certificate and found it, John Collinge born 2nd February 1857 had died aged 30 minutes! I have a marriage certificate for Peter Duffy and Sarah Collinge but have so far not been able to find a birth certificate for John Duffy. To make matters even worse last week a cousin sent me a grave paper dating back to 1880. The grave was bought by Peter Dothie and the first person buried in the grave was Sarah Dothie. When I rang the cemetery the records they have say that it is Sarah Dothie or Duffy. The other people in the grave are three children of John Collinge (Duffy), a Mary Collinge (no idea who she is) and one of my uncles. I visited the cemetery on Monday but unfortunately there is no headstone. How do I go about proving that John Collinge is the son of Peter Duffy?

[dot.hawkes]

I suggest you look at the Parish registers for his baptism, it looks to me that John Collinge may have been the illegitaimate son of sarah but the natural son of Peter, if they married subsequent to his birth registartion they may not have known they could go back and reregister the child as legitamate, well it's not regiegstering really but the record is changed. By the time John married he was an adult and he knew he had been brought up as Duffy and he knew he was his fathers son and so he was entitled to put peter as his father. Also , it is probable that the boys were twins and the eldest born was always going to be called John after a grandparent, but the eldest is the boy that died at 30 mins and was buried as John, but then when the registartion was done, and you may need to check the date of registartion against the date of birth, probably they decided to use the name for the younger twin. If both twins had survived to registartion of the birh there would be a time on the certificate but it is unlikely the boy that died had his birth registered though these days I think both would have been done. It sounds feasible in my head, just have a think about it and tell me if any of that works.

[dot.hawkes]

sorry my typing is rubbish i am tired :(

[spudqueen]

Thanks for that Dot. I'd thought about John being the illegitimate son of Sarah and possibly Peter. The John Collinge who died aged 30 minutes had completely different parents. I have thought that possibly Sarah was the aunt of the child who died. I suppose I could look into it that way. I'd not thought of looking in the parish registers, looks like another trip to Rochdale is on the cards! Cheers.

[dot.hawkes]

have you considered that maybe the babies were cousins and the mother of the other one died in childbirth and her sister brought the surviving child up?

[spudqueen]

Hi Dot, yes I'd considered that they might be cousins (which would be how he knew about the baby that died and 'stole' it's identity in later life), but the mother was still alive in the 1861 and 1871 census. This is a problem that I keep coming back to, getting frustrated and leaving it for a while then coming back to again. One day, hopefully, I'll crack it!