FMP help please

Maybe he had someone alter his birth certificate .. Hutton to Hamilton - ut to amil

[kiterunner]

Originally Posted by Merry

Yes it is strange Shona. After 25 years I still feel slightly uneasy about it, in spite of the overwhelming evidence, but that is just me.

The Dundee connection settled it for me.

[kiterunner]

Originally Posted by tenterfieldjulie

Maybe he had someone alter his birth certificate .. Hutton to Hamilton - ut to amil

And David to John?!

[ElizabethHerts]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

The Dundee connection settled it for me.

Me too, Kate. After all, how many coincidences can there be?

Yes that would be harder, but not taking up a lot more space .. Of course it would depend on how carefully birth records were checked. Often times they didn't check ages of boys who were obviously under age.

[Mary from Italy]

Not sure about disciplinary records; I have a WWI court-martial record for an Australian ancestor who was tried in the UK, where he was stationed at the time, but I got it through the Aus archives.

I should think UK disciplinary records may well have survived, and might be at Kew. Maybe Ann Swabey will know.

I would also try the Irish archives to see if they have anything else, including photos.

As far as the date of birth goes, I have one very dysfunctional family in my tree, and I've been told by living descendants that the children born in the 1880s, had no idea when their birthdays were, even as adults, so a 2-day difference may not be anything to worry about, although it's a pity the date isn't exact.

I am sure that many of the Irish didn't know when they were born. They were too busy trying to survive. It was difficult enough to feed their families, they wouldn't have had a special day for birthdays. Especially with big families. They were more likely to celebrate a Saints day. I know Peter's grandfather in Aus, wrote back to his brother .. When were you born? I know I am older than you.
Another friend's father in law wrote one age on his marriage cert and then few years later said another age. His wife said but you were only a year older than me when we married and now you are three.. When she finally found his records, at 11 years of age his parents had died and he was being brought up by his grandmother and working.

[Merry]

Oh I agree, the Dundee connection does make it all look most probable, even the "Timekeeper" is good enough to replace "Harbour Master" for me. After all, it was my grandmother who told me these things about him and after so many years I doubt she remembered it all that well.
The other conundrum is why did he talk about his Scottish father not changing his decision in the letter to my grandmother. Surely he wouldn't have been there in Cork when he went to visit his people. Unless, of course, it was all a load of baloney!

[Shona]

What an amazing story, though. John Hamilton, aka, David Hutton, may have changed his name, but he didn't invent a whole back story. The following has turned out to be true...or almost true (hardly surprising after the passage of time).

2) Mum was from Cork.
3) Mum met a Scottish man in Cork.
4) Mum and the Scottish man married in Dundee.
5) He was born in Cork in 1895.
6) A connection with Dundee harbour - turned out to be the grandfather not the father and a timekeeper and not a harbour master.

Apart from the Dundee connection which was a clincher, the military papers indicated that David Hutton was going by the name John Hamilton before the outbreak of World War 1.

Oh, and all the Horgan's Road connections.

[kiterunner]

Originally Posted by Merry

The other conundrum is why did he talk about his Scottish father not changing his decision in the letter to my grandmother. Surely he wouldn't have been there in Cork when he went to visit his people.

Was he perhaps making up a story that would explain to her why they would not be going to visit his family or contact them, but without having to tell the truth about his background?