Unusual Way to Find a Maiden Surname

Image by Stuart Miles, freedigitalphotos.net

This is how I discovered the maiden surname of Bertha Gladys, wife of Ernest Tasman WOOLDRIDGE:

1. Libraries Tasmania's online collection: Tasmanian Archives item number HSD274/1/3, New Town Infirmary alphabetical admission register, says 'Bertha Gladys WOOLDRIDGE born Blayney NSW'.


2. Tasmanian Archives online catalogue entry: item number HSD186/1/5696, refers to Bertha Gladys WOOLDRIDGE born 21 Oct 1892 (but further research showed that this should be 1891).


3. Ernest Tasman WOOLDRIDGE's will (which is online) refers to 'May Alva GARLICK, the sister of my late wife Bertha Gladys WOOLDRIDGE'.


4. New South Wales Registar-General's births index has entries for Bertha G. GARLICK (born 21 Oct 1891) and her sister Mary A. GARLICK, parents John and Elizabeth, district Blayney.

Ernest's parents are William Tasman WOOLDRIDGE and Helen Rebeccca CAMPBELL, and I'd love to hear from their descendants. Helen is my great-great-grandmother's sister. Many of the WOOLDRIDGE family were in Tasmania, but Archibald Edward WOOLDRIDGE moved to Queensland.

Forty-five trees on Ancestry had the wrong information for Bertha. They said she wasn't married, and that she died in 1974 (she actually died in 1954). I guess one person's tree was wrong, and forty-four people copied it without checking the facts. Sigh.

Postscript, 2024: For more ideas, see (these open in new windows):

• 7 Little-Used Tricks For Finding That Missing Maiden Name
• Places for Finding a Woman's Maiden Name: A Checklist of 90 Sources

(This post first appeared on https://uk-australia.blogspot.com/2020/08/unusual-way-to-find-maiden-surname.html.)