Talk:Maud Allan

Storr

What is the relevance of "John Henry Bradley Storrs Papers"? Deipnosophista (talk) 13:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• Maud Allen Salome headshot UK issue.jpg
• MaudeAllanSalomeHead.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:09, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Birth name

Allan's birth certificate (bottom right, #028033)

The article states that Allan was born as either Beulah Maude Durrant or Ulah Maud Alma Durrant. The discrepancy here is mirrored by the sources, each of which seems to say something different. As set forth below, I believe her birth name as it appears on her birth certificate was actually "Ulla Maude Durrant".

• Cherniavsky 1983, pp. 4–5: According to further records of the [office of the Registrar General of the Province of Ontario], William Henry Theodore was born ... on April 24, 1871, followed by the birth of Ullah Maud on August 27, 1873
• Cherniavsky 1991, p. 21: refers to the birth certificate of Maud (1873). Oddly, Allan's full name and date of birth (other than the year) are not mentioned in this book. Cherniavsky gives Allan's father's full name as William Allan Durrant (p. 21), and later (pp. 38–39) states that in 1910, Maud gave several interviews in which she referred to her stage name. Sometimes she claimed to have taken her father's middle name. At other times she stated that she had taken her mother's (birth) name, a slip of the lip, no doubt.
• Cherniavsky 1998, p. 7: 1873: Born Ulah Maud Allan Durrant in Toronto, April 23
• McConnell 2005, p. 26: Their first child, Willaim Henry Theodore, was born on April 24, 1871, followed by Ullah Maude Alma (she would later drop the "e" from her second name) on August 27, 1873

• A footnote follows this paragraph. It is on page 294. It first cites the Ontario birth certificates (including Allan's, which was #028033, then states that Some commentators have spelled her name as "Beulah," so it was probably pronounced to rhyme with it. Her name is given as Ulah Maud Alma Durrant in the affidavit to the elder Durrants' libel suit [filed c. 1897–1898] against juror Horace Smyth

• Dance Collection Danse (cited in lead): Birth Name: Ulah Maud Allan Durrant
• Finally, there is the birth certificate itself, which is on Ancestry.com, and which I've uploaded to Commons. It's hand written, but appears (fairly clearly, as I see it) to say "Ulla Maude Durrant".

This leaves us with seven different sources, and six different names:

1. Beulah Maude Durrant (Wikipedia)
2. Ulah Maud Alma Durrant (Wikipedia; McConnell 2005, cited to affidavit)
3. Ullah Maud [Durrant] (Cherniavsky 1983)
4. Ulah Maud Allan Durrant (Cherniavsky 1998; Dance Collection Danse)
5. Ulla Maude Alma (McConnell 2005)
6. Ulla Maude Durrant (birth certificate)

It's extremely odd how there are so many different spellings, especially given that both Cherniavsky and McConnell cited the birth certificate—Cherniavsky even spelled her name differently at different times (and got her birthday incorrect in his 1998 book). In any event, it appears that only the birth certificate is correct. As for the first source, none of the other sources use "Beulah", and McConnell 2005 describes how that may have been a phonetic misnomer; indeed, several news articles from her libel trial in 1918 say that she testified that her real name was "Beulah Maud Allan Durant", suggesting that it was simply misheard. The second, meanwhile, is how her name appeared in an affidavit decades after her birth, not how it appeared at birth. The third is close, but has an 'h' after Ulla, and is missing the 'e' in Maude. The fourth is also missing the 'e', and adds another middle name—Allan—that, in his other book, Cherniavsky explained was part of her stage name and chosen because it was her father's middle name. The fifth adds the name "Alma" (the same name that is said to appear on the well-after-birth affidavit). Finally, there doesn't appear to be a reason to doubt our own eyes in reading the birth certificate; likewise, several entries online, including the ODNB (which cites her birth certificate) and The Canadian Encyclopedia, also say "Ulla Maude Durrant".

I realize this is a long post, but I think the result is that her birth name should be understood to be Ulla Maude Durrant. Does that make sense to others? --Usernameunique (talk) 02:55, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Tendentious material litters the article

There is a large amount of material in this article that is quite badly biased (in favour of the subject, in a fanboy/fangirl kind of way). I can't tell if the bias comes from Cherniavsky personally - one of the authors of material about this topic - or if the bias comes from a Wikipedia editor who misused and twisted Cherniavsky's work to suit themselves. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 04:16, 22 May 2026 (UTC)