Mysterious Mobile Wedding Date

+9 votes
369 views
This is making me tear my hair out, and I'm starting to wonder whether my 3rd great-grandparents were very, very bad at dates, if I'm dealing with multiple sets of people with the same names in the same places, or if they're deliberately shifting dates in birth registrations (scandalous!)

I'm looking at the parents of my ancestor John Angus Mac/McInnis (10 Nov 1862- 4 Nov 1939, b. in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia). On his death certificate, as written by his daughter Hannah, his parents were Angus MacInnis and Christy Murray.

Birth records for children of Angus MacInnis and Christy Murray are as follows:

Archibald McInnis (b. 20 April 1870). Listed 10 March 1857.

Martha McInnis (b. 27 July 1874). Marriage date listed as Jan 1859.

David McInnis (b 19 Feb 1877). Listed Jan 1858.

On every birth record, Angus is listed as a sailor and the place of marriage given as St. Andrews. When I searched the St Andrews parish records, I did find a marriage of Angus McInnis and Christy Murphy -- perhaps miswritten? -- on 18 Feb 1857.

To complicate things further, I can't find a birth record with their names attached to John Angus, but I can find a baptism record; it's just dated a full year before the Nov 1862 birthday given on his death certificate and written on his tombstone: 8 Dec 1861.

There is a second John Angus McInnis in Antigonish county born around this time to Donald McInnis and Christy Mcdougall whose baptismal record is consistent with my JA's birth date.

Is there any sense to be made of this? Could the death certificate be incorrect? Are there four sets of Angus and Christies in Antigonish County having children within 5 years of each other? I have laid eyes on every digitized record to confirm accuracy of transcription. I'm holding off on creating profiles for JA's parents for obvious reasons. Any advice is appreciated!
WikiTree profile: John MacInnis
in Genealogy Help by Emily Gerren G2G Crew (450 points)
retagged by Michael Cayley

2 Answers

+14 votes
 
Best answer
First of all, kudos for seeking as many sources as possible to support the facts.

I see these sorts of things myself, particularly in Nova Scotia. The thing is, back in the day, people often weren't sure of their own birthdates, or maybe were given a mistaken date from their parents' memories. Same goes for wedding anniversaries. It just wasn't that important compared to all of what we use birthdates for today.

I would trust the contemporaneous record first - death records and gravestones, after all, are completed by other people. I don't trust things like birthdates on them. For the marriage date, trust the church register first.

As to whether or not there are multiple couples with the same or similar names -- yes this can happen sometimes. Look for the censuses to look for possible dopplegangers. Sometimes I try to learn about as much as I can about an unrelated family of similar names to try to keep them all straight.
by Matthew Sullivan G2G6 Pilot (183k points)
selected by Emily Gerren
Matthew, thanks so much for the detailed reply. This is so valuable to how I'm going to approach records from here on. If I trust contemporary records first, and then go with what I personally would remember -- giving a little wiggle room on dates -- I figure Hannah is unlikely to have her grandparents' names wrong in order to rectify the baptismal record with the other MacInnis family. I've updated John's profile suggesting the date one year earlier, referencing the baptism record.

I'll check in with the census to confirm sibling names and build out the doppelganger families in the area -- one of whom I already know has a second Archibald, born the same decade.

Cheers!
+10 votes
There do seem to be a lot of them about!

I've added an 1891 census which looks like him: Angus, farmer & tailor, Christy, John, a tailor and lots of siblings.

Perhaps the birth records say tailor rather than sailor?
by Gill Whitehouse G2G6 Pilot (198k points)
Martha isn't on that census but the birth dates of "Archie" and "Davie" are close enough. The birth records for Antigonish don't seem to start until 1864 so that's why you can't find it. I couldn't get the novascotia genealogy link to work, so I couldn't investigate that further.

Edit, there's also an 1891 census for Donald and Christie with son John A. so they are a different couple. There are a huge amount of McInnises there!
Yup, it's definitely tailor. I need to brush up on my 19th century letterforms!

Thanks so much for adding the census records. It looks like they did rather take over the county!

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