Hampshire - Suffolk - Rutland - Herefordshire Tree

RL 20/6/07 Approx. dob from 1901 census, then via GRO sources. [Originally in my email 2/2/07 to GL]: "The [GRO Index] image [viewed via BMDIndex and FreeBMD] is a bit fuzzy, especially on 'Saptia' ... ... which is not a name I recall ever hearing before ... ... and it's definitely not 'Sophia'. ... I put 'saptia' into Google and came up with enough examples to convince me it was entirely plausible, e.g. in the life story of someone who I'll anonymise here: 'My second wife, Saptia Merrill, had four children, ten grandchildren and five great grandchildren. My wife, Jane Stoker, who now lives, has eleven children, and twenty grandchildren. My total posterity is 351 at the present time.' And Chislehurst was in Bromley RD of course." Graham's response (3/02): " 'Sapha', as Free BMD has it, seems a better interpretation of what's in the image than 'Saptia', but since neither appears anywhere in 1901 it's a moot point." RL 4/2: "... ... I've now viewed the image using every available format via FreeBMD and couldn't distinguish amongst them - often I've found one is clearer than another - nor from that I'd viewed previously via BMDIndex. I still <i>marginally</i> favour 'Saptia', partly via comparison with the 'th' in 'Martha' nearby {see further comments below**} and partly because of finding a few examples of the use of the name - which I could not for 'Sapha', not for girls anyway; that said, people can be called almost anything! But in the end I don't think it's possible to resolve this; a moot point, as you say." ** "The top parts of the relevant letters are indistinct. I just think the bottoms of each vertical part of the 'h' in 'Martha' are pretty much identical, whereas the equivalents in 'Sap??a' look to be parts of different letters. In some ways this is 'clearer' at 'low' magnification (82%); if one magnifies in the hope of being able to see more clearly one comes up against issues of the combination of typewriter/ink/paper - and the passage of time etc. Anyway, as you say, we don't have anything else with the name, so ......... I did try searching FreeBMD for a poss. marriage 1910 onwards, using both variants and plain Elizabeth; nothing. Not worth the time to search BMDIndex with no further clues to narrow it down."