Re: LOCKYER-NIBBS
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In reply to:
Re: LOCKYER-NIBBS
Alan JACKSON 6/26/07
Here are my current thoughts about this line:
I was intrigued as to how this surname came about, the family legend being that a John NIBBS born mid 1770s married twice, first to a NIBBS and secondly to a LOCKYER.But records now available to a researcher disclose otherwise.As we shall see, he himself first married as a LOCKYER and secondly as a NIBBS.
John, at his second marriage as NIBBS in 1842, appears to have given Charles NIBBS as the name of his father - the source for this is the marriage certificate.However, after a vain search for such a Charles,I now think that John either omitted (deliberately or otherwise) to say that his father was not a NIBBS or it was the case that the Registrar merely assumed him to be a NIBBS.
So still to be wholly verified, here's my theory.
Ann LOKIER/LOCKYER in Wimborne had a child John fathered by a Charles (surname unknown).There is a baptismal record of a John LOKIER to Ann on 1st Mar 1775 at Wimborne.**She later married Thomas NIBBS in 1781 at Poole.
The child was a liability on the parish and, to relieve it, the churchwardens arranged for John to be apprenticed to the same Thomas NIBBS - I have obtained a copy of the 1786 document stating Thomas was from Medmenham but was then sojourning in Poole. John aged 11 went to live with Thomas and Ann who later moved to Gosport, he seemingly knowing the first name of his real father ie Charles.A second person Elias DACOMB was also apprenticed at the same time and I wonder if that has any significance.
Later we see a John LOCKYER marrying a Mary BULL at St Mary'sPortsea in 1800.That I'm sure is the former apprentice.It was only after the last child was born that John started to use the surname NIBBS.The family are indeed on the 1841 census as NIBBS with John at the helm and sure enough in 1851 he is given as born Wimborne c1775.All children were baptised as LOCKYERs one helpfully, from my point of view, with the middlename of Nibbs.One son John 'James', like his siblings, married as LOCKYER to Ann STEDMAN at St Thomas Portsmouth in 1834 but after moving to Malta as a master baker he also started to use the surname NIBBS.It was one of his children, George Albert, who chose LOCKYER-NIBBS.
I'm corresponding with three or four descendants of the LOCKYER/NIBBS family, one branch now using a different double-barrelled surname incorporating NIBBS.
NOTE:
Adoption was not available in the UK before 1926 but, as now, it was not uncommon for a child of one spouse to live with her/him and a step-parent.Census returns reveal that some stepchildren kept their original surnames whereas others didn't.The same would apply if the child was with what we would now call foster parents.No formal name change was (nor is) required under English Law.AKA stands for 'also known as' and occurs where someone uses two different names.Hence John (and his son John 'James') were able to retain their surname of LOCKYER but both later to use the surname NIBBS.
**I suppose it's possible that Charles & Ann were married and that he died before the child was born but I can find no record of such a death in the NBI.
Alan
Alan Jackson
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