Surname Saturday: Popham

It's not very often I find a new surname and can insert it into my family tree.  So I was delighted to search through findmypast.com and find the marriage of my gggg grandparents: John DUNSTONE and Ann POPHAM on 19 May 1802.

Unfortunately, there were several John DUNSTONEs who married an Ann - and the reason I chose Ann POPHAM?  Because for years, I have had their children listed, and the fifth child (and fourth daughter) was christened Elizabeth Popham DUNSTONE.  I always wondered why, even when I had been shown throughout other family lines that children were often given their mother's maiden name as either their middle name, or their first name!  But I just didn't realise it with Elizabeth and her mother, Ann.  I felt like one of those cartoon characters who gets hit on the head with an ENORMOUS wooden mallet. Shame I didn't pay attention to the genealogical mallet earlier...

In fact, I had already searched findmypast for the marriage.  But, because John came from Cornwall, and the 1851 census said that Ann was also born in Cornwall, I only looked at the marriages that took place in Cornwall.  They were married in Devon, in the nearby parish of Revelstoke.  I wonder why?  That's what a new surname will do for you - send you off on another quest.