John
On Sun, 23 Nov 1997 17:24:49 -0500 (EST), you wrote:
I found this family in the 1840 Scottish census ..... In this record
Margaret
is listed under her maiden name and not as a Graham! ..... The two of them
WERE married and the '41 census is usually
pretty skimpy on details, so why list Margaret as a Campbell? Could she
have been from a prominent Campbell family and was flaunting it or is there
there a less exciting reason?
I was hoping that you would receive an answer from someone more expert
than me. You haven't, at least not publicly, so here are a few
comments.
I have seen a few census entries where a married woman is listed by
her maiden name, although it is not a common practice. The logic
behind such an entry is likely to be that, on marriage, a woman in
Scotland did not lose her maiden name: she gained her husband's name.
Your Margaret would be known legally as "Margaret Campbell or Graham",
and she could use either surname (or both). If she has a headstone, it
will almost certainly say something like "Here lies Margaret Campbell,
wife of John Graham". This usage is quite distinct from the use of
more than one forename. For example, Margaret could have called
herself Margaret C Graham only if the C stood for, perhaps, Catriona;
the C would not have stood for Campbell.
I hope this is of some help.
--
Iain Sommerville
Burntisland, Fife, Scotland