Thread: sully/williams

My grandfather was william george sully, b 1853 bethnal green, london, changed his surname about 1892 unofficially to williams - why?

married margaret griffiths about 1877/78, 10 children.

made penny farthing cycles.

Trying to find out more about him but having difficulty tracing him and his family in census and bmd.

Any help appreciated.



BEB

Hi BEB,



I have two in my tree that changed their names. One had a surname that was not particularly nice . The other took on an alias after being in a fight resulting in the death of the other man. This was probably done to protect his family

Your one could have changed his name because of something like this or just to distinquish himself from another maker of penny farthing cycles. Looking at trade directories for that area might give you a clue to whether someone else has the same name, even another family member. If no luck there, you could try the parish records to see if there were any court cases under his previous name. The second one of mine was found by an addd entry on his death.

I think it odd he changed it to Williams as that is far more common than Sully. Hard to say. I've only come across a real name change once, from McCarthy to Carter, which I assume was to play down the Irish connection, though there were several children who continued to use McCarthy surname.