How to find a woman's maiden name

Start with the marriage

The marriage record is the most direct source. Depending on the place and time, there may be a license application, a marriage bond, a minister's return, or a register entry, and each may give her name before marriage, her age, her residence and sometimes her parents. Ask the county clerk for the whole file, not only the certificate, and note who signed as surety or witness, since that was sometimes her father, brother or another relative.

If she married more than once, the surname on her later marriage may be a former husband's, not her birth name. Watch for words such as widow or Mrs. before her name, and keep looking until you find the first marriage.

Records her children left

Death certificates for her children often give the mother's maiden name, because the form asked for it. Get the certificate of every child, not only your direct ancestor: each had a different informant, and one may have known more than another. A spelling that differs from child to child is itself a clue worth recording.

For a child who lived into the 1930s or later, look for the Social Security application, Form SS-5. The original 1936 form asked for the father's full name and the mother's full maiden name, and it asked married women to give their maiden first name, maiden last name and husband's last name. Copies can be ordered from the Social Security Administration for people who have died.

Obituaries, for her and for her children, may say that she was the daughter of a named man, or list her surviving brothers and sisters. Funeral notices often mention out-of-town relatives with her family surname.

Wills, deeds and pensions

Her father's will is one of the best sources of all. A phrase such as my daughter Mary, wife of John Jones, both names her and confirms her marriage. Probate files for her parents' estates, especially when there was no will, list every heir, and married daughters appear with their husbands. Land deeds that divide a father's farm among his heirs work the same way, and a deed signed by a husband and wife, sometimes marked et ux., may show her selling land she inherited from her own family.

If her husband served in the military, look at the widow's pension file. A widow applying for a pension often gave her maiden name and the date and place of marriage, and sometimes sent a copy of the marriage record or family Bible pages as proof.

Census households, churches and stones

Look at who else lived in the household. Starting in 1880, the census gave each person's relationship to the head, so you may find a mother-in-law, a brother-in-law or a niece with a different surname. Before 1880 the relationships are not written, but an older person living with the family may still be her parent. Check the neighbors too, because newly married couples often settled near her family.

Church records can help. At a baptism, a child's godparents or sponsors were often close relatives, such as the mother's sister or parents. Old naming customs sometimes gave a child the mother's surname as a first or middle name, so a son called Brown Smith is a hint to test, not a proof.

Gravestones may say daughter of, and a wife may be buried in her parents' lot rather than her husband's. In records written in other languages, look for the words that mark a birth name: née in French and in English newspapers, geb. (for geborene) in German, and z domu, literally "from the house of," in Polish. Each one is followed by the woman's maiden surname.