Genealogy Chat

I have a situation where I have two Ann's and two William's with different birth dates. Wondering if others had seen similar.

If you read a thread over on records board you will see it was very common indeed. For one reason, there was a superstition that if you named the child the same as the dead one then 'Death' would be fooled into not noticing the new baby. There were also naming patterns and if James was an important name to the family (e.g. the fathers or grandfathers name) then they would want it to be used for one of their own children. I have three James in one line dying a year after each other.

Thanks for that ... very helpful.

My grandmother was named Caroline Mary, she had two older sisters called Caroline Mary Elinor who both only lived a few months. The Elinor was obviously a bit much! Christine in NZ

I have a distant relative who had about ten kids. The eldest was named John Wallace Castledine and died at 6 (I wouldn't want to go through life with that kind of name either!) and later on his younger brother was named after him. There's a funny thing with my aunties and uncles on Dad's side, too. I call all of them Uncle John etc, but there was one other child, Joseph, who died at about 14 months, and I think who my dad was named after, but I never refer to him as Uncle Joseph. Nobody does - he's just Joseph instead. (On a side note, I ordered his death certificate - curiousity got the better of me and I'd like to know why he died.)

I guess this is common. I have a family naming a child William Victor, who died aged 3, then naming their next child William Harvey. The strangest naming I have come accross is someone having two children named ann, one about 6 months old and one about 20. Neither had died and both lived at their parents home. They were 2 of about 12 children so maybe they forgot!

I have a Sarah Ann and a Sarah, both living at the same time, and marrying in the same place within a month of each other. The mother is Sarah as well.....the elder was known as Ann It really doesn't help looking them up on censuses though!! P

Hannah ...... just a suggestion. Could the younger Ann actually be the daughter of the older Ann? I only think of this because I've found something similar in a family I was researching.

One of my ancestors was called George Walker, the same as his father, and I always thought he was the oldest in the family. I searched and searched for his birth certificate (he was born in 1843) to no avail, even though the registrar at Retford register office was extremely helpful, to the point of enquiring of other register offices in the area whether they had the entry of birth in their registers. All George's younger siblings were registered, and their mother was a school mistress, so I felt that it was unlikely that George had not been registered just because it wasn't compulsory. It was only when I checked through the PR for the village of George's birth that I discovered he had an older brother, also called George, born and died in 1842. This birth was registered. I suspect that after going to the trouble of getting a certificate for the first George, the parents thought that it would do for the second one - it was only a year out, after all!

Kate - were your Castledines from Lincoln or Northants? I have a Mary Castledine marrying a Ben Wyles in Woolthorpe. My GGFx4 is William Castledine Wyles born 1802 Lincoln. I am having real problems deciding on his family - a suitable lot are in the 1841 in Ufford, Northants.