I changed my surname when I was 18 because my Father and I Do Not Get On, to put it politely. Alternatively one might say that he is a self-centered whiny excuse for a man and I disdain to be associated with him, which is simply another way to phrase it. I haven't spoken to him in over fifteen years now, nor do I ever intend to again.
When I changed my name I spent a long time deliberating over it, and eventually chose a name that had a very vague connection to my Mother's family. When I got married I felt strongly enough about that surname that I decided on double-barrelling it with the Doc's; because that name was mine, all mine, and it's been a large part of who I am for my entire adult life.
Recently The Doc's Dad told us his sister was putting together a family tree and we received our copy yesterday. It's a ring bound book comprising of charts, reminiscences and some photos, and it goes back to Doc's Grandfather who was born in 1905.
We sat down to have a look at it and when we turned to the page with Doc and my details on it, we found that Doc's place of birth was wrong and the date of our wedding was completely wrong too, it's not even the right year. As the daughter of a genealogist (Hi Mum!), I have to say that is very shoddy work indeed, even for an amateur. I mean if you can't accurately record an event that happened less then eighteen months ago, how can anyone be sure the rest of it is correct?
To cap it all off I am listed under my birth name (we think they got that from our wedding certificate, I hated having to put my Father's name on that!), and, to add insult to injury, it's been misspelled. It was such a shock to see my old surname there, it was almost like being slapped. To start with, that has not been my name legally for quite some time, I have paper work to prove it, and, even if it were, that is not how you spell it.
I found it surprisingly upsetting and frustrating, perhaps because I know Doc's family has never really got their heads around the double barrelling of my name and, if it's totally different to the one now listed in their copies of the family tree, they probably never will.
sigh.
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