Can two become one?

[les hancock]

I have a Henry and a Harry Hancock both born abt 1881 in Aston. Henry appears on the 1881 census aged 10 months, No sign of Harry....... However Henry dissappears in the 1901 census and Harry appears. I can find evidence in the BMD of Henry being born but not Harry and the same again in the deaths.

Am I right in assuming that Harry and Henry are the same person and that perhaps Henry didnt like his name and changed it to Harry? Where people able to do this then???

Confused!!!!!!

Les

 

[Shera]

as far as i know, although henry and harry can be separate names, people with the name henry are often called harry. so yes i think it would be the same person

 

[mikejee]

Following on from Shera's comment, my great uncle was Harry with a son Henry (both were Henry on their birth certificate). After Harry died his son became known as Harry. I think very often young children were described as Henry and became Harry as they got older. Incidently i was named Henry as a middle name after the son mentioned above, hate being called Henry (as people intent on irritating me have discovered), and use it as little as possible
Mike

 

[Lloyd]

I think we have to remember here that for early censii (censuses?) peoples literacy was sadly lacking. I have found many cases of name spelling changing over the census decades, sometimes changing the initial letter of a first name making later alphabetical listing haphazard. Here is a description of how the data was collected, from https://www.british-genealogy.com/resources/census/

"In many cases, the original schedule was filled in by a child rather than by the head of the household. The reason is simple. During the 1800s the children went to school, or Sunday school, and learned to read and write, whereas parents (of the older generation) could often not be able to read and write.
It is a common myth that a census enumerator knocked on doors and asked who was present, and then wrote down the details, often mis-hearing, or mis-spelling. No. Sure, there may have been isolated examples of that having been done, but this is very rare!
During the week following census night, the enumerator visited all of the houses, and collected the forms. (The Schedules), and then he collated them, and then wrote them up into his enumerator's book, in schedule number order. The enumerator may have found it difficult to interpret the handwriting on the schedule, and he may have mis-transcribed some details.
The original Schedules (forms) have very rarely survived. A pity, because it is those that are the original records, albeit not the official ones."

Also where multiple names are used, which one is the 'used' one? In my own family, in recent past generations, it was usually the second name which was the used one - George Ernest was known as Ernest: Frank George was known as George: Millicent Eileen was known as Eileen. My father was Clifford Roy, known as Roy. I am different in that being named Lloyd Roy, I am known as Lloyd. If my second name had been different to my father's, that may have been my 'known' name.