Who's the Daddy? - Joseph Elton-Walters

I had always been interested in where the double-barrelled name of this line of the family had come from. I had assumed that somewhere along the line an ELTON had married a WALTERS and they had joined the names for whatever reason. However,  when I found my great-grandfather's parents with just the name of WALTERS I was intrigued. Fortunately, the census gave some clues.

On the 1881 census, the family had a lodger, Charles ELTON, living with them. To start with I thought that maybe he was in fact a relative of some kind. As Joseph's name on his birth certificate is "Joseph Edward Elton Walters" I considered that he may have received the "Elton" part of his name from another branch of the family I hadn't yet found. However, it became clearer when I discovered that Joe wasn't the only one of the family with this middle name, three of his ten siblings also had the inclusion. This along with Joseph changing his name at some point before his marriage led me to believe that Charles ELTON was his biological father.

On receiving a copy of Joseph's birth certificate, this theory was scuppered slightly as the father is named as John Charles WALTERS. Obviously this points to the father being John, yet I was still convinced that it's Charles. While it is possible that John's middle name is in fact Charles, it seems more likely to me that it is an indication of the real father and that John's name was used for appearances sake. Also, the father's occupation matches Charles rather than John. John wasn't living with the family in 1881 (although may have been working away at sea) and by 1891 Joseph's mother, Lucy is listed as widowed. As yet, I haven't determined whether John is actually deceased at this point.

The next step was to order Joseph's marriage certificate in the hope that he had given Charles as his father, considering that he is now using the surname of ELTON-WALTERS. On receiving the certificate, I was confused as while the father's name clearly stated the surname to be ELTON-WALTERS, the first name clearly wasn't Charles or John. It took me a moment to decipher the name to be "Mark" which initially didn't make sense until I remembered the 1891 census for the family. Neither John nor Charles was living with the family but there was another lodger, Mark SHAW. I also recalled that as Joseph's four younger siblings had the middle name of "Shaw", Mark was the most likely father of these children. Mark was with the family until at least 1901 (census) - it seems that this is the man Joseph grew up with as a father figure.

More about Joseph ELTON-WALTERS

What I Already Know - The Elton-Walters/Wetherick Line

Again, I knew little about this line of my family. My Nan, Marcelle, died when I was five-years-old. I can vaguely remember her but as I only saw her a few times a year, the memories are limited. I knew that she originally came from the Isle of Wight. I also knew that one of her brothers had lived in Brading as I had been there to visit once when I was a child.

Again, I assumed the unusual surname would help here but it actually turned out to be a hindrance. I could easily find my Nan and her siblings as well as a death for their father, Joseph Edward ELTON-WALTERS, but Grandpa Joe wasn't so easy to find after that. I eventually managed to find him under Joseph Walters, which made me wonder where the double-barreled name came from, especially when I found his mother's maiden name wasn't ELTON. Despite having found the census records for the family it took a while to figure out. I will post more on this and how I solved it another time as it was quite complicated but essentially it came down to Joseph's parents not being married. He obviously at some point decided to use both surnames.

How Joseph ended up with his wife, Lucy WETHERICK, who was from the Isle of Wight when he grew up in Lancashire is the next thing I'd like to try to find out.