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Interchangeable name - Sarah / Jemima
by Sue Restell (guest)
11/17/2014, 10:43 AM
Hello - I wonder if anyone can help me. Amongst my ancestors I appear to have a mother AND daughter who both seem to use both Sarah and Jemima as their name in different censuses. Has anyone seen this before? Is it a known alternative?
Thanks
Sue Restell
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- Sabertooth   +6
11/17/2014, 8:18 PM
Which census years?Are you sure that they weren't alternating between their first & middle names?
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- Sue Restell (guest)   +5
11/18/2014, 4:55 AM
Don't think so. I've got a mother who is Jemima on all records except the 1861 census, when she's Sarah…..and her daughter who is Sarah Ann on most records I've found so far - except the same 1861 census, when she's Jemima. There is another child called Jemima born in 1864. Confusing!
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- LMS
11/22/2014, 5:33 AM
Yes, mistakes are rampant in old census records. Names, ages, birthplaces, etc. Especially if the record is a transcript from an original record. The more transcriptions the more things get lost in translation.
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- ClaudiaS   +3
11/18/2014, 6:46 AM
Don't you think it could have been just a mistake? All kinds of errors crept into old records (and even modern ones, for that matter). I would assume that Jemima was the mother, and Sarah Ann the daughter.
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- Sue Restell (guest)   +2
11/19/2014, 12:39 PM
Yes I do wonder if it could be a mix up. I don't know whether the 1861 enumerators took details verbally (in which case he could quite easily have mixed up the mother and daughter's names) or if the householder filled out a form like in 1911 (in which case it would have been harder to mix them up). I just wondered if Jemima and Sarah were 2 versions of the same name - sort of like Elizabeth and Betty.
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- Amphelise (Chrisell)
11/20/2014, 3:02 PM
Yes, it's probably just a data entry error, whether modern or original.
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- Sabertooth
11/19/2014, 3:22 PM
They are both direct Anglicizations of distinctly different Hebrew names.
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