Genealogy Chat

just got back to this

As you know I received your email .......... and it was much appreciated

am doing a tree for him. on my other ( new ) lappie that has latest FTM on

Thank you :-D

all though the lodger was 62 in the 1861 census
im woundering if maybe he is the father of james
and maybe that is how he got the name as not wanted

think it is all maybe if and buts :-(

but thank you all for your intrest

Alfred was in Australia by then so he wasn't at the baptism....I have a couple in my family where the father was either invented or another where the mother was living with another man and has the child baptised a couple of hundred miles from where the child was born with I presume the real fathers name (not that I have ever found a marriage for this couple)

Could this be the baptism of James's sister Eliza - quite a long time after her birth but maybe James's death prompted mum to have her baptized; Alfred shown as Engineer; address: 44 Union St

Eliza Jane Colvill
Record Type:Baptism
Baptism Date:30 Jun 1861
Father's Name:Alfred Benjamin Colvill
Mother's name:Eliza Colvill
Parish or Poor Law Union:St Paul, Westminster Bridge Road
Borough:Southwark
Register Type:Parish Registers

Thanks for letting us know. Bless him and all the other little ones who died young. It was so common then I don't know how people coped with it.

Thanks for keeping us up to date... I was also hoping Not Wanted was a mistake... :-( :-( :-(

yes jax mother did registered both birth and death cert


thay both have the mark of eliza

Renes i have sent you an email

I still think the 'Not wanted' part is some sort of mistake when registering the birth myself.

Eliza was illiterate so she probably didn't realise what was on the cert??

Was it the mother who registered both?

The moment we have all been waiting for


1 birth cert
1 death cert

so i can confirm that yes Eliza and Alfred Colvill are Not Wanted James parents
and poor little thing died of Tabes Mesenterica (TB)

Tabes Mesenterica
Tuberculosis of lymph glands inside the abdomen. An illness of children caused by drinking milk from cows infected with tuberculosis. Now uncommon as milk is pasteurised



shelly xxx

I thought you were going to say they had arrived, I was all excited lol.

Im still waiting for the certs to come and as they never came today
hoping they will come in tomorrow post

my post man comes around 11am

My thought exactly, and if "not wanted" was true how he lived. it's really sad.

Is this something someone came across a while ago, I seem to remember another thread with "not wanted" as a Christian name?

ADDED, sorry didn't read your OP very well I realise this came from another thread.

thank you all for your intreast

i will let you all no the out come when the certs get here
hopefully by the end of next week

edit.... im now wondering how he died

He died at a few months old anyway.....It wasn't compulsary to register a birth back then and it wasn't compulsory to give the correct names when marrying.....not sure whether birth cert would need to be shown when registering a death?....as I said the parents did not have to register his birth if they didn't want to

As it looked like Eliza would of registered his death.....maybe she just handed over the birth cert for the details as she could not write herself?

Maybe the registrar wasn´t as bright as he might have been & having asked for a 2nd Christian name, he mistook the parents response of "not wanted" & entered it in the records, making it the poor chap´s legal name & he was stuck with it for the rest of his life.
If it was on his birth cert, which is a legal document, it would also be on his death cert (& probably his marriage cert too)

Ah well

Likely to be wishful thinking on my part then :-\

He is in a tree on Ancestry/Mundia.

Picture the scene –

Mum (or Dad) goes to register the birth.
“What is his name?
“We haven’t really thought about it. He's not wanted. Errr….James.”

Alternatively –
“James. He's not wanted”

Until records of him were found on Census, a thought did surface that he might have been a foundling.

I think that if "Not Wanted" was referring to a middle name then it would probably only appear on the birth record. As it's on the death record as well.............who knows!!

Kath. x

Is it at all possible ... That the " not wanted "
was referring to a middle name -

or is it wishful thinking on my part