Genealogy Chat

You might be right Heather. I found most of the children, from the LDS site, which is excellent for Barton where they were from, but I was unable to find her father's marriage, so he might have married and had the first daughter in another parish. Talking about naming children after relatives, my two have both got middle names from my husbands grandparents, but we have now found the names occur a lot more and my daughter's middle name Ellen, occurs in both families. Lynn

Christine, I'm not sure whether Jewish children being named after deceased relatives is considered unlucky or not, but I have heard that the Jewish children can't be named after a living member of the family. My ancestors are Jewish, my great grandfather was called Harris who died in WW1, his sister then married a few years later and named her son Harris. When I asked another decendant if he was named after his late uncle, I was told that was probably the reason although if my great grandfather had lived the name couldn't have been used. Talking of nameing children after relatives, I'm not named after anyone :-(. I don't even know where my parents got my name from. My father says it was after the poet, my mum says she don't know where she got it from, where I was born and grew up a lot of the streets were named after poets, so maybe it was the poet. My son is called James, taken from his fathers middle name, the family are convinced he is named after a cousin of mine called Jamie.

Perhaps one died young just before her - or mum lost count!

Heather, thats interesting that you said that. I have just checked her family and she is the 6th child/daughter. I will have to look out for a 7th! She went on to have 12 children herself, but only 5 girls. Lynn :-)

I know the tradition seems to go awol in the latish 19th century but up to that point most of mine stick rigidly to the father, grandfather, wifes father and so on - except for the Bonifaces and Verralls who seem to make up names as they go - though I dont have a full picture of all the branches there. This one being so early, I was concerned I was jumping on the wrong bandwagon. After the Horsteads and their 7 generations of James, followed by Edward then Thomas, Joseph and Jonas, I was smugly expecting all my families to follow that. Anyway, looks like I have another dozen lightermen to add to my tree! I feel reassured. Many thanks. Sue, this Humphrey is a first name, not surname, sorry. Lynn, your name would have meant 7 child or daughter - so I guess it is less likely to crop up as a traditional one.

Heather The short answer to your question - sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't! LOL, how helpful. I have generations who only ever learned to spell 12 names and they use those over and over again. However, sometimes an odd name creeps in, and I find that can be useful for tipping the balance in favour of this being family A rather than family B. I did come a cropper recently - I have the unusual name of Parnall as a female first name. Every branch of this family has a Parnall (and a Henshaw) which made them easy to trace. So when I found a stray Parnall in the village, I pushed and shoved to make her fit in somewhere with the family. Eventually I realised that the father of the stray Parnall worked for the family and, sucking up to the boss, named his first daughter thus - in the hope of promotion, perhaps? OC

I have some that did pass on and some that didn't! Have Hugh & Eleanor marrying in the 1790's - had a large family, but not one Hugh or Eleanor amongst their descendents, up to current family members. Yet every generation before had several Hughs. Same family have loads of Johns, Roberts and Jameses before and after. Jay

I had to laugh the other day when I realise something that we ALL moan about I'd done myself, i.e. use maiden name as middle name for children, saw thread that suggested this was very common in Cornwall, some of my rellies came from there and it made sense then, but then I thought, Ohhh I've done that, I loved the name Matthew (my maiden name Matthews) and I've used it for a middle name for my son!!!! Although I know Matthew is an accepted forename, but I couldn't help laughing when I realised that I am guilty of this too. Gill

Heather, I think it depends on what period you are talking about. There were very few different first names used before about the second half of the 19th century and people did tend to get named after their grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts before then, but in Victorian times there was something of an explosion of 'modern' names and a lot of families threw out the old conventions of naming and started choosing names they liked for their children instead. Kate.

I suppose some names are more likely to pass down than others. I have a lot of recurrent names in my tree but I notice that noone has been named after my most unusual name 'Septiana'! Lynn

You haven't come across an Ozias Humphrey have you Heather? I have that in 2 generations of Humphreys.

Thanks Phoenix - I tend to think that 'fashion' doesnt come in to it, that tradition would be more important - but I guess you are right, no Edmunds, Alexanders or Tomsynes appear in the children of other lines I have ;}

Heather If you'd called one of your son s Lancelot, do you think that they would want to name children after themselves? I have some family names which go from tudor times to the 1900s. Others clearly go out of date. None of Petronel Adams' descendants were named after her. Her parents were Nicholas and Joan. Again, these names were not passed down. Instead, Adams was used as a Christian name for a couple of generations.

Thanks guys I want to believe this is the family but the name Humphrey - in the mid 18th century is an unusual one and I just expected it to pop up somewhere. I guess just as now there may be family rifts and the name not included in the grandchildren.

As far as I can see in my family tree, children were named after their parents, grandparents and gt grandparents as well as their aunts & uncles until about 1870ish. Then, increasingly, children were given names which weren't traditional, but would have a middle name which was parents/grandparents' etc. nell

About 1759, my 4xgreat grandmother, Susanna Netley was born. As far as I know, not one of her many descendants were named after her. She married a James, who were 2 a penny in our family though. Gwyn

my family followed the tradition- not ONE of my grans 11 named after anyone! granny was a rebel! jess

A very kind soul has looked up a baptism for me at LMA and it certainly seems to fit right time, place etc and unsual surname but I am concerned that in the line of descendants neither the mother or fathers first names appear at all. Should I be concerned?