Interchangeable Last Names? - Main / Baillie / Wallace

[clairemcgillivray]

Good afternoon all,

Looking for a bit of advice, as I seem to have a situation with interchangeable last names that's causing me a great deal of confusion!

My 2nd great-grandmother on my mother's side (my grandmother's mother's mother) seems to appear on the following document as such:

BIRTH CERTIFICATE (1880)
Birth Name: Janet Main ("Baillie")
Father's Name: Robert Main ("Baillie")
Mother's Name: Catherine Main ("Baillie"), nee. Main (Wallace)

This is the first source of confusion - why are the surnames listed in brackets and the mother's married and maiden names both reference 'Main'?

1881 SCOTLAND CENSUS
Child's Name: Jessie Baillie
Father's Name: Robert Baillie
Mother's Name: Catherine Baillie

Ages and places of birth all match up, and Jessie is known to be interchangeable with Janet. My mother has also mentioned that her great-granny was known to the family as 'Jessie' - so that's not an issue. What I'm curious about is why - less than a year after Janet's birth - they've dropped the Main from their name.

MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE (1902)
Bride's Name: Jessie Baillie
Father's Name: Robert Baillie
Mother's Name: Catherine Baillie, nee. Wallace

So again, we've got ages and places of birth all present and correct but no sign of the Main in the name. Can anyone shed any light on this please?

[WilmaM]

Welcome to Talking Scot

I have no idea of the answer straight away.
However, have you checked her parents' marriage details?
The birth certificate should give you the date and place to narrow it down.
See what the couple or calling themselves then.

[clairemcgillivray]

Hi Wilma, thanks for the warm welcome - I'm new to the geneaology scene so I'm sure I'll be asking for a lot of help in the near future!

I'm about to try and track it down now - thank you for the tip. I'm just a bit concerned that I end up on the wrong trail because of the last name issue. I'll see what I can find!

EDIT: After many incorrect searches, I found it! Mystery deepens even further as they're both listed as Main! The certificate is nearly illegible, so I'm going to see if I can decipher it! See here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18170&p=144459#p144459

[AndrewP]

Hi Claire,

I read the marriage certificate as:

Robert Main, Sailor (Merchant Service), Bachelor
. . . Father: Alexander Main (Baillie), Fisherman
. . . Mother: Isabella Main, ms. Ralph

Catherine Main, Fisherwoman, Spinster
. . . Father: Donald Main (Wallace), Fisherman
. . . Mother: Janet Main, ms. Wilson

Catherine Main's x-mark was witnessed by John Baillie and John Ralph, who were also the witnesses to the marriage.

I think we are looking at T-names here (also known as to-names or by-names), a tradition found in many of the Moray firth fishing villages. This was where the amount of surnames in the locality was small, and so a lot of marriages could be of the same surnames, and sometimes the same with the couple's parents.

See:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/conte ... ?r=551&560
http://boards.ancestry.co.uk/thread.asp ... ai.general
http://rls.org.uk/database/record.php?u ... -001-553-L

So by my understanding of these documents, the 'real' family name for all of these was Main, but they were commonly known by their t-names.

All the best,

AndrewP

[clairemcgillivray]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks so much for your help! That was the theory I just posed to my mum - that in order to distinguish between lines of Main's they used the names in parenthesis - good to have some backup from someone in the know! However, my partner is a Main (although not from Moray as far as anyone can tell, more investigation required) so this may be slightly worrying!

Thanks,
Claire

[WilmaM]

If you had mentioned Moray and fishing before, T names would have sprung to mind.
Still in evidence up there, an uncle is known as Lugs to all concerned!

Glad we have solved it, though your present day Main line will add confusion no doubt.

[Russell]

Hi Wilma
I thought right away about Port Gordon where they only started the village with a pool of 10 surnames then realised my Watson families in Cellardyke had the same T-name needs to sort out the different family lines.
I like Lugs as a not very complimentary name. The song "Why does everybody call me Big Ears" came to mind,

Russell