Effect of unusual names

[Liberty]

Just a musing on my part, really. Do you think that if you have an unusual surname in your tree you get more involved in investigating it?
I have a direct ancestor (3G GM) called Jane Twizell (her father was Cuthbert which is even better, and she had a cousin Isabel Twizell) and have put a lot of my browsing time into tracking down Twizells. They contribute no more to my tree than any other name at that number of generations distant, but somehow it is more intriguing and satisfying than the Smiths, Wests and Coopers. I suppose I have a vague hope I can link them all up together....
Does anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[Tim]

Yes, I think you're right. They stand out more.

I also find that they can be very difficult to track down, as no one ever seems to spell their name the same in any official record!

 

[Britjan]

Just a musing on my part, ... have a direct ancestor (3G GM) called Jane Twizell (her father was Cuthbert which is even better, and she had a cousin Isabel Twizell) and have put a lot of my browsing time into tracking down Twizells. Does anyone else have a similar experience?

I am thankful that a family with a common name chose to double barrel it or throw in an occasional middle name reference to two founding families. Not sure if any expected to be remembered in a will but it certainly helps me go "ahah, I'm on the right track". Have you browsed as far as probate records for your Twizells or seen if the name gets carried on as a middle name?

 

[emjay]

Yeah those middle/double barrel names can be so useful and satisfying......but also we develop some kind of empathy/intuition for these ancestors we only know about
from our research. I certainly seem to 'know' if I'm on the right track; sometimes census forms have different families with the same forenames, yet as I progress I find
myself saying "no, no, something's not right here"....

 

[Liberty]

I am thankful that a family with a common name chose to double barrel it or throw in an occasional middle name reference to two founding families. Not sure if any expected to be remembered in a will but it certainly helps me go "ahah, I'm on the right track". Have you browsed as far as probate records for your Twizells or seen if the name gets carried on as a middle name?

From time to time Twizell crops up as middle name, as does Cuthbert. (Though this not so unusual in Northumberland as elsewhere). One of the men married a Mabel Hedley about 1805, and there seems to be a Mabel in every family of his descendants after that, and Hedley as middle name. Not tried probate yet.
I agree with you as to the joy and relief at recognising a family name. This is why the Twizells are light relief after the Coopers of Sheringham where the men seemed to have 6 Christian names between them

 

[peter]

Double-barrelled names are extremely rare prior to the 20th century. Whilst surnames may have been used as middle names (as in the case of my grandfather) they were hardly ever considered to be part of the surname.

Of course, it was different for the aristocracy (but then it always was).

 

[emjay]

You are quite right Peter, I meant a surname used as a middle name, not double - barrel.

 

[Carla]

It's always useful to find an ancestor has given one of their children their mother's maiden name as a middle name. It's very helpful in identifying whether you have the correct family! For example one of my femail ancestors surnames is De Costa. When Sarah married Phillip Abrahams their first daughter was called Elsie Dacosta Abrahams.

 

[Liberty]

A very distant ancestor (6xG GF) was called Doiley Scott (that's the line that goes back to Macbeth) . This name crops up in later generations a wide range of families - Doiley Scott Cooper in my line, DS Dennis, DS Broughton, DS Bayfield. As markers go, it's pretty good.
And the sister of my GG GM, christian name Mary, married a John Smith. For a long time I shrank from trying to identify the children of a John and Mary Smith, but when I started looking at baptism records, I found one baby with Mary's maiden name as his first name, and another with HER mother's maiden name as his middle name. Relief!

 

[emjay]

Hi Liberty, I too have Smith ancestry with a marker: 'Swain'. I first saw the name on my g grandmother's headstone, although it had not been used on any documentation relating to her life events. However, it opened up a pathway to finding it attached to others in her family....lots of eureka moments

 

[Liberty]

Maybe Peter could put this in a newsletter. "Ancestors called Smith? Don't despair!"

 

[Britjan]

Maybe Peter could put this in a newsletter. "Ancestors called Smith? Don't despair!"

I'll drink to that, and "no comments from the cheap seats" to quote my mother ! I am delighted that a living Smith connection was a much easier find than I had anticipated. It was due to confirming a familial link through a careful reading of the 1881 census and going from there. Granted it was in a rural area and I imagine if it had been London, for example, not so easy. However I just went back to refresh my memory on my tree and found a lot more Smiths I need to spend more energy on

 

[AnneC]

I'll drink to that, and "no comments from the cheap seats" to quote my mother ! I am delighted that a living Smith connection was a much easier find than I had anticipated. It was due to confirming a familial link through a careful reading of the 1881 census and going from there. Granted it was in a rural area and I imagine if it had been London, for example, not so easy. However I just went back to refresh my memory on my tree and found a lot more Smiths I need to spend more energy on

My mum was a Smith, and I too thought it would be difficult, but it turned out to be much easier than some of the more unusual names.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

The curse of the unusual name is that they very frequently get mis-transcribed so they can be harder to find. Of course when you do find them its so much easier to be sure its them.

 

[Carla]

Funny but I always thought Smith would be a hard name to research so you have opened my eyes to some ways of clarifying an ancestor is indeed the correct one. I am having problems researching my husband's maternal side.......Williams in Wales have proved to be a nightmare, and having ancestors called William Williams () flumaxed me totally. It was a year ago I tried to find them so I think I may just try again. Even though they came from a particular area I had no idea how many people all had the same name, so goodness knows how they all identified each other?

 

[Tim]

Funny but I always thought Smith would be a hard name to research so you have opened my eyes to some ways of clarifying an ancestor is indeed the correct one. I am having problems researching my husband's maternal side.......Williams in Wales have proved to be a nightmare, and having ancestors called William Williams () flumaxed me totally. It was a year ago I tried to find them so I think I may just try again. Even though they came from a particular area I had no idea how many people all had the same name, so goodness knows how they all identified each other?

Apart from using names i.e. names of mothers, fathers and grandparents, and the maiden names of mothers and grandmothers (both sides) as middle names, I use occupations, neighbours and addresses a lot when trying to work out who is who. Quite often sons learnt the same trade as their fathers, and they didn't move around often.

So I create a small tree that I populate with my best guesses and work through the options till you get a tree that works.
This can mean that I create trees with info that I then have to discard. What quite often happens is that when you go back a couple of censuses, you suddenly find a Eureka moment that helps to bind the whole tree together.

 

[Britjan]

Apart from using names ... I use occupations, neighbours and addresses a lot when trying to work out who is who. ............

Has anybody had any success with addresses?
My grandmother isn't readily identifiable from the 1911 census, the closest possibility has her living as a servant. In the following year she married my grandfather and is only listed as "spinster." I've traced the census records for both addresses on their marriage certificate as my grandfather had moved by 1912. The address my grandmother gave is a single family dwelling and if it's the same family the name doesn't have an obvious connection to her. The two men in the family however were in the same occupation as my grandfather but it's a pretty common one. My grandfather's new address isn't helpful either. I don't want to turn this into a "brick wall" as obviously it's not but I am curious about the significant gap in her life between age 15 and 26 and I had hoped an address search might help. I have dutifully posted my finds to Lost Cousins, mainly because it's a convenient place to "park" such information.

 

[Liberty]

My ancestors in Sheringham (as I have mentioned) had a limited range of Christian names, and apparently kept remarrying back into the same families.
Someone called John Cooper West was 'probably' the son of Mr West and the former Miss Cooper. Or he might be the descendant of one such.
However, John Cooper West could also be the son of Mr Cooper and Miss West, who hadn't made it to he church in time. If (as was commonly the case) the parents married, he would probably appear in censuses under his father's name (in this case John Cooper) - though he might be married under his legal name (in this case John West, with or without the Cooper). Sometimes, a boy who had been known by his father's name in childhood (in this case Cooper) reverted to his correct name, ie his mother's name when she had him (in this case West). (Incidentally, I have 20 John Coopers in my tree and 17 John Wests and no, I can't keep them sorted!)

 

[Alexander Bisset]

(Incidentally, I have 20 John Coopers in my tree and 17 John Wests and no, I can't keep them sorted!)

Ahh such small numbers I have 219 William Bissets and 183 Alexander Bissets in my tree, etc. Then again I am doing a one name study (is that cheating?)

 

[Liberty]

Ahh such small numbers I have 219 William Bissets and 183 Alexander Bissets in my tree, etc. Then again I am doing a one name study (is that cheating?)

Not cheating, but it's not quite the same situation. If I included all the people with the same names but where I can't see the connection I am pretty sure the numbers would go up. And that's only the Coopers and Wests in Sheringham and surrounds. I suspect that if you asked FMP for 'John Cooper' in the 1881 census it would refuse to co-operate