Names

The Blended Family

26 May By Dwight

When studying a family unit in the census, it can be easy to miss a “blended family.” A blended family denotes his children, her children and, possibly, their children. Blended families can be obscure if civil or church marriages are incomplete,destroyed or non-existent in an area. They also may be uncertain when death records and tombstones are absent. Here are some tried and tested clues to consider:

Among the Irish, a man could marry three times and all of his wives may be named Mary. Noting the ages of the various Marys or gaps in the children’s ages can provide more evidence.

Gaps in the ages of the children are a giveaway. However, historically there was a high rate of infant mortality, this can also explain gaps with no blended families involved.

Common-law marriages can conceal the presence of a blended marriage. This occurred with some regularity in bygone times. When it is not obvious, how do you know if you are looking at a blended family when the paper trail makes it look otherwise? Which children belong to whom?

In the case of children from blended families, with what surname do you see them listed in the census schedules? They may all be under the stepfather’s surname, making it look like they are his biological children. If the father dies and the stepmother remarries, then his children may be under the name of her new husband. Be careful and never assume anything.

If two children in the same family have the same first name, (ex. two Thomases or two Catherines) but a few years apart in age, this may be a clue to a blended family. One of the Thomas children may be a stepson.

While these principles may appear as common sense, it’s important to remember blended families can be complex. This is especially true when civil or church marriages are not evident. Happy hunting!

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Sorting People by a Place Name

31 Jan By Dwight Leave a Comment

Names can be so common you don’t know if you have the right Patrick Murphy in the Irish christening records. This is true if you only have a minimum amount of details. I was working on just such a case, where I believed I had identified the correct Catholic parish in County Tipperary. However, a few doubts remained which needed to be addressed.

Creating an On the Spot Research Strategy

My solution was to think in terms of the strong and weak points of the case. The name Patrick Murphy was my weakest point, because it was common. My strong point was the parish registers listed “addresses” such as townlands and localized place names within the townlands. This meant I could easily sort Murphy families out by their address. What made this task even easier was the old registers had been recopied by hand during the 1930s and placed on printed fill in the blank pages.

The new register itself was both a strong and a weak point. Yes, it was easy to scan a page but the transcribers often had problems reading the original handwriting.

Identifying my Strongest Point

My strongest point was the family in question was found in a small, localized place called The Rock. I documented all Murphy families from The Rock to see if any immigrated to the Ontario city where the targeted family lived. Could I establish any common patterns?

Now if the Murphy pattern couldn’t be worked on the Ontario side, I could expand my strategy by studying ALL families, regardless of surname, hailing from The Rock. Then return to my Ontario research and see if common migration patterns emerged.

Often creating on the spot strategies are the only way to solve research problems. You simply cannot go to a database with minimum information and know which Patrick Murphy is the man you are seeking.

If you are frustrated and need new eyes to help create an “on the spot” strategy Click Here.

Line Deeds Up in Date Order!

6 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

Many Irish and Scots-Irish names are common. This presents its own unique problem as you now have to sort through them not only in the records of Ireland but also in the immigrant country. This is where you have to be very careful in your research to assure you have the correct person. This blog will focus on the immigrant country.

Several Families with the Same Name

Yes, you may have three Kelly or Stewart families in an county or township, and they may or may not all be related. So how do you sort through everybody?

If I’m using a land record in the immigrant country, I start with picking a targeted time frame. If 1800-1820 or 1850-1860 fits your research needs then stick to that as a test. Then using the land deeds, go chronologically through the records extracting all Kelly or Stewarts; even if you have no idea who they are. If the surname is simply to common, then choose particular given names you need to know more about. This narrows your target to all John Stewart deed transactions from 1800 to 1820. Then line them up chronologically.

A Pattern Emerges Separating out Individuals and Families

Once you do this then a pattern will begin to emerge. In the land records you will find the description (location) of the properties, the buyer or seller, the neighbors and the witnesses. Then at the end of your search you will see just how many John Stewarts you really have.

Then separate them out by what the records say. Do you have two John Stewarts or Frank Kellys or do you have five? This will go a long way to helping you sort through common names and stay on track with your research.

Click Here if you would like to know more about deed research and sorting through common names and surnames.

The “O” and the “Mc” in Irish Surnames

10 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

I just returned from the huge Dublin Irish Festival outside Columbus, Ohio: www.dublinirishfestival.org where I was able to consult with many patrons in the Genealogy Tent. One question which kept coming across my table was about the “O” and the “Mc” in Irish and Scots-Irish surnames.

“Mc” or “Mac” means “son of” among the Irish and the Scots. In Ireland into the Middle Ages naming was patronymic, with the next generation having a different surname depending on what the father’s first name was. The practice lasted longer in Scotland. It was by the eleventh century that the surnames became established in Ireland and did not change.

Now concerning the Irish “O” this meant “grandson,” and was used in a similar fashion as discussed above. This became standardized in the Middle Ages as surnames. A good discussion of this can be found on the “Irish Times” website by genealogist John Grenham.

Now concerning the use of “O” and “Mc/Mac” remember that what the ancient Gaelic folk used, and what we see today when Anglicized may be two different things. O’Murphy became Murphy, which is a simple example. To follow with this example, the records you use in genealogy will list Murphy far more often than O’Murphy.

Now for your research, there are some things you need to be aware. The name O’Connor and Connor are the same. Keep the “O” or drop the “O” (or Mc in other names) doesn’t make any difference. The ancestors were fluid in their thinking. My rule of thumb is to think phonetically; considering the majority of the population was either illiterate or semi-literate.

If you try and think phonetically, with or without the “Mc” or “O” then you will most likely find your people in the records where otherwise you may miss them. Also, when looking at various indexes, see if the compiler made a special section for “O” and “Mc” names. This is very important in your research.

Scottish Naming Patterns

9 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

Scots-Irish research is affected by the traditional Scottish Naming Patterns. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the patterns began to break down, so you have to be careful. The traditional formula and their variations are as follows:

1^st son named after the father’s father (variation is after the mother’s father)

2^nd son is named after the mother’s father (variation is the father’s father)

3^rd son is named after the father

4^th son is named after the father’s oldest brother (variation is after the father’s paternal grandfather)

5^th son is named after the mother’s oldest brother (variation is after the mother’s paternal grandfather)

1^st daughter named after the mother’s mother (variation is after the father’s mother)

2^nd daughter named after the father’s mother

3^rd daughter named after the mother

4^th daughter named after the mother’s oldest sister (variation is after the mother’s maternal grandmother)

5^th daughter named after the father’s oldest sister (variation is after the father’s maternal grandmother)

The formula looks good on paper, but there are factors to take into consideration. Foremost is the typical Presbyterian register in Ireland only begins in the 1820s or 1830s, so you miss so older children to even know what the first child may have been named. Another factor is the gaps within the existing registers, so you don’t always know if you have full list of the children. It’s complicated further if you add in renaming children the same thing at the death of an older child. Then again, there are those families who didn’t care one way or another about a naming pattern, as a child could have been named after the popular local minister!

My rule of thumb is the Scottish naming pattern is real, but you still have to remain careful and not set anything in stone.

Irish Naming Patterns

8 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

People often ask me if there is an “Irish Naming Pattern.” The simple answer is “Yes.” However, it not that simple, as circumstances and individuals tend to mess with our nice little formulas. This blog focuses on traditional Irish Catholic naming patterns which are as follows:

1^st son was named after the father’s father

2^nd son was named after the mother’s father

3^rd son was named after the father

4^th son was named after the father’s eldest brother

1^st daughter was named after the mother’s mother

2^nd daughter was named after the father’s mother

3^rd daughter was named after the mother

4^th daughter was named after the mother’s eldest sister

Nice formula on paper, but let’s discuss how it often plays out in real families. If you are already working in the Irish parish registers, be aware that these can be incomplete for all denominations, especially Roman Catholic. So you might only document half or less of the children in a family. That really messes with the formula in a bad way.

Another factor is even if you think you have all the children documented, look for gaps, because so many children were born dead or were miscarried. Thus they were never christened. In other cases, a child would die and the mother would name a later child after the one which died. These can mess with the formula. You may wonder how a stillborn or miscarriage would affect the formula. Well, it all depends on if the family saw the dead child as a child or not. If so, even without being christened, they may have named the child. Also, don’t forget, many children were named after the local favorite saint. It gets complicated.

My advice is to always look for the naming patterns in your research. However, don’t be literal in your approach and don’t set anything in stone. Tomorrow I will be talking about Scottish Naming Patterns.

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Professional Links

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African American Surnames

29 May By Dwight Leave a Comment

How African American families got their surnames is often misunderstood, affecting your ability to connect into your Irish ancestor. The popular notion is that the slaves took the surname of the last master.

You may find your family did not have a “slave name” at all. Often surnames were used for several generations within a family. It may also be your ancestors were not slaves. You might be descended from those bi-racial and tri-racial families from the 1600s; descendants of African men and Irish woman. This free segment of the population was more common than you might think.

The 1870 Census is the first federal schedule which lists the former slaves by their full names. This is a pivotal record. If you find your ancestors in the census schedules prior to 1870, then start asking some serious questions about what “free color” means.

In some families surnames came into use just like they did with the free population, from the father or mother. In slave families, surnames were often used, but not publically. The slave owner had little reason to know, use or care about slave surnames.

The surnames of slaves might signify a major event or person such as a favorite or first master. Often surnames were chosen for various other reasons; a political figure (Washington, Lincoln), a first name (David, John, George), a principle (Freeman, Love, Pride), an occupation (Carpenter, Mason), or a place. These were sentimental ways of forging an identity as a family unit apart from the brutality of slavery.

Remember, a family could have used an unofficial surname for generations, but the first recorded evidence might have been in the 1870 Census. This is your pivotal record in exploring the origins on your surname.

“Surname Clusters” to Sort Through Common Surnames

17 Apr By Dwight Leave a Comment

In regard to a question asked about “clusters of names” from the blog “Sorting Through Irish Common Names,” I would like to respond. If you know Mary Kelly was born 1848 in Ireland, and you don’t know her parents, you are not ready for Irish research. You have to find out more information from the immigrant side of her life. Parents, siblings, and the naming patterns of her children can all be helpful. Even if you know she was from County Tipperary, you still have to have more information. Why? Because her 1848 birth year is probably wrong, and there’s at least 100 other Mary Kellys born in that period.

Now if you know Mary Kelly married Patrick Sullivan in County Tipperary about 1868, then you can look at the online indexes for marriages at www.rootsireland.ie or www.familysearch.org Most Catholic parish registers are indexed online. Better still, if Patrick and Mary had children born in County Tipperary, this increases your chances of finding your ancestors.

I have also cracked many cases where I’ve used the in-laws names in this cluster oriented research. You are better off knowing several surnames associated with the family in question. The theory is all were from the same parish or neighboring parishes. When working with surnames, you have to be very fluid in spelling. If a spelling in the immigrant country doesn’t match anything in Ireland, I work with a book of Irish surnames, or a database such as Griffith’s Primary Valuation. Then I can study surname variations.

Another quirk is historically, the Irish were fluid with the spelling of their surnames as

they did not think in literal terms. They dropped the “O” or the “Mc” or added them with no rhyme or reason, other than perhaps they saw them as the same name.

In conclusion, if you have common names, gather as many as you can from your immigrant research, and then proceed to narrow a geographic area using databases such as Griffith’s Primary Valuation: www.askaboutireland.ie These strategies do work very well with common names.

Variations to Irish Given Names

15 Apr By Dwight Leave a Comment

Often people miss the very person they are looking for in Irish records, because they are not aware of variations in given names. For example, if you didn’t know Delia, Bedelia or Cordelia are nicknames for Bridget, then you may skip over the marriage or christening record you need. Another one you may not have thought about is that Eugene and Owen are interchangeable. If you didn’t know these nicknames, then it could cause you all kinds of grief in your research.

My rule of thumb is that most male names are somewhat straightforward. Corny is a nick name for Cornelius, as is Con and Neil. Those make sense. Perhaps a less straightforward one is Darby or Dermot for Jeremiah. However, the female names can be complicated from two perspectives.

The first perspective is that you might find Mary as Catherine or Bridget, with no rhyme or reason why. Those can be frustrating. From the second perspective, Johanna, Hannah, Anna, Hanora, Honora and Nora are the same name. In this second example, you would probably figure it out along the way during the research process.

There are many books on the market for Irish given names. The one I use all the time was written by genealogist Rosemary Muscarella Ardolina, What’s in a Name? A List of Christian Names, and Their Irish Nicknames, Variants, Irish & Latin Equivalents (Floral Park, New York: Delia Publications, 2001). I would highly recommend you purchase this small 22 page book: http://deliapublications.com/index.htm

Sorting Through Irish Common Names

12 Apr By Dwight Leave a Comment

In some parts of Ireland, names are so common, you wonder if you will ever find your ancestors. You ask yourself how many Mary Kelly or Patrick Sullivans can there really be, as you sigh. There are ways around the problem, but you have to think creatively.

For example, I knew where a family was from based upon an Irish parish preserved on an American tombstone. Unfortunately, I did not know the man’s parents.

Knowing that most Irish birth dates are not correct, I went to the Irish parish registers and began to tally potential christenings. There were ten candidates.

I could eliminate many of them because they did not emigrate. I could eliminate others, because they were too young to have married in America, when the man in question did.

What I was left with was I had eliminated everybody but one family.The namingpatterns for this one family in Ireland did within reason match what the immigrant had named his children born in America. I also studied the tax lists for the townland where this one family lived to see if I could trace any potential neighbors to where the ancestral family lived in America. The results were mixed.

In the end, I could prove the one remaining candidate did not stay in Ireland, which was a big positive, which didn’t prove my case, but there were no other options. That may be only proof I have on this case, linking the family in Ireland, with the family in America.

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