Genealogy Chat

Does anyone know if it would be normal practice for a German couple to Baptise their children with totally different names to what they were commonly known as. Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks for reading

Marion

hi.oh yes yes and more yes.
l have a great grandad in law,that had great fun he changed his family name spelling at will.,he also used his 4 christian names sometimes 1 & sometimes 2,and if he didnt fancy any of them he threw in one of his brothers.
he had 13 children and they joined in the fun.with their christian names. one of the children even used his mother maiden name.oh what fun.
just to add to the game.he said he was french canadian.one of the censurs he came from alsace.and then Germany,/prusser and so forth./and for good measure even the children used different names.
good hunting.regards Bette.

Hi Loopyloo

Thanks for that. That is exactly what my Great Great Grandparents are doing with their names. Some of the children are Baptised with 3 forenames but on the census they are using a completely different forename. At least I can reassure myself that it is the right family and will just have to accept the fact that they will change their names as the fancy takes. Talk about make life difficult.

Thanks, Marion

Hi Marian,my grandfather in law had 2 sons killed in the ww2,a week apart,when l traced the cemetrys,they both had different spellings of the surname & the parents were the same. ,
you wouldnt be looking for name Mierau/mireau/mieran.would you?no l wouldnt be that lucky.regards Bette

No, unfortunately we're not that lucky. My Great Grandparents were Buchbauer/Puchbauer/ Bookbower/Pookbower/Bauer/Bower/Bowers. Their only saving grace was that they didn't move very often and so once I've managed to track them down I know that they are mine. But trying to search all the variations is an absolute nightmare. Good luck with yours. Best wishes, Marion

Absolutely! My 3x great-grandparents Heinrich Jacob BURGMANN and Johanna Christiana MEISSNER were known by Henry and Christiana when they came out to Australia in 1849.

They had 4 sons:
Johann George Ludwig, mostly known as "George" (also "John George" or "George Gotlieb")
Henry Frederick, known as "Frederick"
George Henry, known as "Henry" or "Harry"
John, known as "John"

In NSW the parents names are given in the online BMD index. As you can imagine the fact that the brothers were going by their second names and that these were frequently the same as their brothers' first names, this made it very difficult to ascertain which wife & children belonged to which brother. One of my relos was able to work it all out from talking to descendants and checking bmd certificates but it was very complicated.

Luckily for us this convention was abandoned in later generations making it much easier to trace them online. It turns out every BURGMANN born in NSW from 1849-1909 is a descendant of this couple.

Bec