My Turner connection ( or not )

My granny Nellie Crackett was born Ellenor Turner. When I started on my genealogy adventure the Turner line was one of the few that I felt sure about but that certainty was quickly dispelled when hunting for vital records further up the line. I discovered that my great grandfather George Murray Turner was about 3 years old when his “parents” married. His birth record states that he was illegitimate and gives his birth name as George Murray. However, following his mother’s subsequent marriage he was raised as a Turner so I have decided to document the Turner connection while being aware that there is most likely a biological father still to be identified. George was raised by William Robinson Turner, son of John Thomas Turner son of John Turner. Although I have not yet checked records further back I have seen a few trees taking the line back several generations and plan to take a closer look at these.

2 thoughts on “Turner

  1. If he was registered as a Murray but then later renamed Turner once his parents remarried, there is also a good chance that William Robinson Turner was his biological father, but just born out of wedlock.

    My great-great-grandfather, Ralph Gray, was born out of wedlock in 1850 and his mother later married George Wilson. Ralph never took on the name Wilson, and George was referred to his stepfather (or his father-in-law, which was apparently also used to mean stepfather).

    A brother of another great-great-grandfather, William Mitton, was born out of wedlock in 1835 and baptised as William Armitstead. I know he has the same parents as my great-great-grandfather though, because on his baptism record his parents are (rather cheekily) listed as “Joseph Mitton Armitstead” and “Betty Armitstead”. Joseph and Betty married later that year, and William then began using the name William Mitton.

    Sadly though, as fathers were not recorded on the birth certificates of illegitimate children, sometimes we will never know. Sometimes the biological father’s names are however listed on baptism records, so always worth checking there.

    • No father on the birth record. I have not yet checked the baptism to see if there is a father on it.
      Since George named his oldest boy William Robinson Turner I did think to start with that there was a good chance of William sr being the biological parent of George. My problem with this theory though is that Barbara was in Coldstream when she gave birth to George and WRT comes from Great Lumley in County Durham. Their married life was half way between at Amble in Northumberland, but so far I have found no evidence that they were anywhere near each other at the time the deed was done. Maybe someday I might get the answer to the conundrum by DNA testing.

Constructive comments and new relatives are welcome:


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