My great-grandfather died in WW1 and then my great-grandmother remarried and had more children with her second husband. This would have been 1920s rural Saskatchewan. All of the children took one last name (not sure if it was the first dad or the second). How would this have been dealt with back then? Would there have been paperwork or would it be informal?
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Hi, welcome to G&FH.SE! I've shortened your title to make it something more likely to pop up in search results.– Jan Murphy ♦Commented Feb 5, 2019 at 20:55
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2I'm not making this an answer as I don't have any supporting documentation, but I would expect the name change to be informal and to apply to the oldest children -- i.e. the children of the first marriage assumed the surname of their step-father ( but their births were registered under their father's surname). They were unlikely to have been formally adopted by their step-father. It's very unlikely the younger children took anybody else's name.– user6485Commented Feb 6, 2019 at 8:17
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My thoughts match @ColeValleyGirl - bear in mind that Canada is mostly driven by Common Law from the UK and here in the UK you can call yourself whatever you like. Formal documentation for the change can be written but it's too make the process easier, it's not mandatory. Google seems to suggest name change rules in Canada are made by provinces but I couldn't work out when those rules came in, nor whether they are mandatory even now. However, surely the initial rules matched those of the UK???– AdrianB38Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 13:15
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