Changing surnames

I am the Online Parish Clerk for Cornwood parish in Devon and have in my files a great deal of information about individuals who lived and worked in the area over the past several centuries. A couple of years ago I was asked if I had any information about a man who had served as the Vicar for the parish: Reverend Herbert Augustus Warburton Gardner-McTaggart.

The individual requesting the information was a member of No.255 Squadron RAF and was writing a biography about one of the Reverend’s sons, Chrysostom Herbert Macpherson Gardner-McTaggart. The biography was published in late 2018 on the website of the 255 Squadron Association.

Over several weeks we discovered a great deal about the Gardner-McTaggart family, particularly about Rev. Gardner-McTaggart. The piece in question, of course, was focused on Chris McTaggart, but we believed at the time that a more in-depth look at his father would be interesting.

I was introduced (by email) to the grandsons of Rev. Gardner-McTaggart who provided material about the family for the biography and for this article, and to whom I am immensely grateful. It may be noted that in my recent research I have found out a few things that even they did not know and was happy to share with them.

Changing surnames

A primary focus of this article is on changing names in England and Wales, outside of the adoption process. An emphasis is also placed on the use of compound surnames, described as double surnames, double-barrelled surnames or hyphenated surnames. Many such names are written without a hyphen, though, which adds to the confusion in searches. Individuals may often go through much of their life using only one of the names.

It has not been uncommon to include the maiden name of a child’s mother in his or her name. In my studies these are often not shown as compound surnames but as additional forenames. Sometimes more than one of the children in a family – but not necessarily all – might