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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Pennines on Friday 17 December 21 19:17 GMT (UK)
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I have just been exploring one of my 'sideways' ancestors - a sister of my Great Grandmother and also following HER children through.
The Yorkshire burial of my Gt Grandmother's sister was actually on Deceased on Line - under her married surname of Stott. Buried in the same grave were her son, David Stott - and also a 'NEWNESS' Stott, a widow. This last one puzzled me - who would be named 'Newness'!
After checking this, I discovered that David Stott had married a 'NEWRESS' Parker in Yorkshire in 1904. What an unusual name.
The birth of Newress Parker was recorded in Q/E March 1883 (her actual birth was in Dec 1882).
Her parents and siblings had 'normal' names -- so why on earth would someone name a daughter 'Newress'?
I just had to share this unusual name -- and her burial as Newness (which amuses me.)
If anyone has heard of it before or comes up with a brilliant idea of why this child was so named -- I would just love to hear your thoughts.
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Is it a surname from earlier in the family? I can see from an Ancestry search for it as a surname there are a few appearances.
Otherwise I agree, as a first name, very unusual!
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Good thought IgorStrav! I bet that's it - so I suppose it could have been much worse!
I hadn't thought of that myself - as it wasn't a middle name.
Thank you. I will explore that idea.
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Just to get you going, Pennines, Newress Parker's parents were
Thomas Parkier sorry Parker 1859 Wombleton and
Emma Sawyer 1849 Ripon, who married in 1881 in Ripon.
I had unreasonable expectations that the Newress name might pop up quickly, but I think you'll need to go back via GRO to get MMN for each of them, and I had to leave my computer to do something else.
Will you keep us posted?
:)
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Thank you again IgorStrav -- you are a star. I love the town name you have discovered also -- Wombleton!
I always wondered where the Wombles came from originally!
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I was talking to my cousin last week, and she asked "Why was my father called James Findlay Duncan Macara *******?"
I said "That was the name of the doctor who delivered him."
She "Yes - I've heard of Dr Macara, but why the middle names?"
Me "Sorry, you've misunderstood - the doctor's name was James Findlay Duncan Macara"
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In my paternal great grandmother’s family the mother’s maiden ,( Rebecca Cordley ) name is carried on as a second Christian name for one son ,,John Cordley, he died so then it became the first Christian name of the next son to be born.Cordley Cole .
Cordley ,I like it and would have used it for one of my sons.
The mother had ten children !eight boys and two girls .Four of thr boys emigrated together in 1855 to Australia ,Sofala and Bathurst ,NSW.to the goldfields.
Another went later ,who was a Methodist Minister ,A boy John Cordley died thenCordley was born .
One more son.
The mother was left a widow ,and died alone ,her two daughters ,one in Manchester and another on the East coast did not see her again.
A nice way if keeping a surname alive.
Viktoria.
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At first when I was reading your message Viktoria - I thought you were going to say they named the son Rebecca! (remember Johnny Cash and 'A boy named Sue'!
djct -- that's amazing - I was doing a friend's family history and one of her ancestors had been given the full name of the vicar who baptised him- as his first names.
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A connection of my family had the middle name Cubitt. I assumed it was a family name, but my research never found it anywhere, so perhaps it was a friend of his father.
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Mysterious 'middle' names are very interesting.
My aunt had the middle name Bruce, and when some years ago I asked her children why, they said that they didn't know, and neither did she.
OH's father and aunt had the middle name Marsden, and when m-i-l was asked why, she said that OH's father had never known the reason, it was a mystery.
However, on further investigation (by me!) it emerged that OH's father's mother had married a man called Marsden, and OH's father had been known by that surname up till WW1, when it changed to the current surname borne by the family. We have an image of his enlistment with the Marsden name crossed out and another name (his mother's maiden name) put in.
I think it will be impossible that OH's father didn't know his grandparents were Mr and Mrs Marsden, and understand why there might have been a name change.
We explained to m-i-l that birth out of wedlock was involved and she said the equivalent of "well, I never did!, he never knew that!". But I bet they all did really.
And did my aunt really not know why her middle name was Bruce? Well she never told, whatever the case.
I suppose after that long and involved story - are you all still with me? - my point is that family stories are just what people choose to tell you, not necessarily the actual truth.
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In my 40+ year One Name Study of Ballards I have come across a few unusual given names but one family in particular takes the prize for having a cluster!
William Ballard (1819 - 1900) married Ann Gelina Randall, already a hint of what may follow, in 1850 in Southwark. Their first child William Augustus dies shortly before their second child arrived & not unusually they reused the name but in reverse order, Augustus William. Sadly he also died young & a few years later Rudolph Herbert arrives. All boys so far & not overly unusual but then they finish with a flourish on three daughters, Hadassah Leonilda (1860), Cleanthus Avicenna (1864) & Quintilia Glaphyra (1867). It was fun researching what their names meant as much as following their lives!
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In Suffolk and Essex I have found quite a few middle names that sound like surnames, and even first names that sound like surnames. The odd one may have been illegitimate.
In 1780, my ancestor Mary Newman Smith wed James Webb in Foulness in Essex. I guess Mary was born about 1760. I have never found a baptism for her, her middle name could mean her mothers maiden name, a further back family name, or a friend of the family/pillar of the community, or she was baseborn and a Mr Newman was her father, and his name given as a middle name.
Such middle names, or surname sounding first names can be handy.
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IRudolph Herbert arrives. All boys so far & not overly unusual but then they finish with a flourish on three daughters, Hadassah Leonilda (1860), Cleanthus Avicenna (1864) & Quintilia Glaphyra (1867). It was fun researching what their names meant as much as following their lives!
I wonder if Quintilia was regarded as the 5th child?
The family I mentioned earlier, where a son had been given the 3 names of a vicar - ended up in New Zealand - they had 16 children -- the tenth one, a daughter - had the middle name of Decima.
That was handy - as I then knew I had the right number of children, up to that point anyway!
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I have a Deverson Titshall in my extended tree. There are several families of that surname in the area of Suffolk he came from (Beccles/Bungay).
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Oh Gosh coombs -- I really like the given name of Deverson. Sounds very autocratic and posh!
As for the surname -- not sure what to say...........
IgorStrav I haven't forgotten that you kindly asked me to let you know how I get on with finding out if Needress was a surname from a past ancestor.
I haven't checked back yet.
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I have an Alice Hypatia Bond, the 13th of 14 children, b. 1891 in London. No other peculiar names in the family.
It has always bugged me how on earth her parents, a baker and his wife, knew the name of a Greek Neoplatonist philsopher, astonomer and mathematician born about 360 BC in Alexandria in Egypt (according to Google)!
Pheno
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It’s The Elgin Marbles !
No ,not sure of the date they were pinched from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin
We had a lovely lady at Church - Hilaria-
She was a laugh too!
Viktoria.
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Elgin Marbles transported to Britain about 1810 - so not that then.
Pheno
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"Oh Gosh coombs -- I really like the given name of Deverson. Sounds very autocratic and posh!"
Quite a common surname in East Kent, but I don't think there are many specially posh ones! ::)
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My Great grandfather was baptised in 1847 as Alison Appleyard, and his cousin was baptised as Alison Appleyard in 1851.
Assumption - Their grandmother's maiden name was actually Allenson - married Wadsworth Appleyard in 1802 as a widow (Binns), having previous been married to Isaac Binns in 1793.
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I have always wondered why the christian name of 'Doctor' was supposedly given to the seventh son of a seventh son. Why? Where did that belief come from? (These are rhetorical questions unless, of course, someone knows the answer).
It seemed to be most common in Lancashire - but maybe that's because I am from Lancashire and have seen it a lot on census records and have a mis-balanced view.
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My 4XGF was christened Loveless in 1751. He doesn't feature in his father's will, written in 1751, so perhaps his father was dubious about his youngest son's parentage.
The name featured a few times in both his and his brother's descendants one of whom tends to have his Christian names transcribed as Loveliest John!
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Oh what a shame.
I am actually surprised that the family carried that name down the generations. Lovliest is nice though!!
I have a Foundling in my tree - baptised at the London Foundling Hospital - they are given a new name on baptism, even if they have one already.
I know this isn't a particularly unusual name - but he was baptised as Gustavus Smith. He was sent to Ackworth, Yorkshire - aged 6. (At that time Ackworth was one of the off-shoots of the London Foundling Hospital)
I was SO thankful he had been given the name Gustavus, with that dreaded surname of Smith.
There weren't many called Gustavus in God's Own County, if any, - so he was easy to track -- that name carried down 2 further generations (from memory).
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What sort of date was that? There are quite a few burials in one of our local church registers (East Kent) in the mid 1750s of children "from the Foundling Hospital", which we think are children sent from London.
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Coram’s Hospital was The Foundling’s Hospital.
Many babies were taken there by their mothers, often girls left “ holding the baby” ,no husbands and no means of providing .
Some babies were handed over and a name given plus mother’s name ,also ,a simple identification token was registered and left .a little button,a bit of lace,a small shell etc,just in case a mother could ever claim her baby back in years to come .
Some babies might have been left in a “lazy Betty “ type turning cupboard in the door.
Handel composed “ The Messiah” to raise funds for the hospital.
Such a sad place , the many many simple tokens ,still there ,mean hardly any
babies were reclaimed.
Some mothers were girls taken advantage of,others were poor street girls .
All left with no support.
I wonder if babies could be sent by Parishes out of London too?
Viktoria.
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My ancestor was baptised there in 1757. There is some brief info here;
https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/about/our-history
There must be more info somewhere, because I discovered that off-shoots were established in other places round the country, but I can't remember how I found that out.
Records of children taken in are held at London Metropilitan Archives.
There are details of Ackworth on Peter Higginbottom's website;
http://www.childrenshomes.org.uk/AckworthFoundling/
there it mentions other places Aylesbury, Barnet, Chester, Shrewsbury and Wrexham.
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I am conscious that we have gone off topic here - my fault for mentioning Gustavus!!
I obtained his papers from the London Metropolitan Archives - cost £50 a good few years ago now - but worth it to me. Told me who baptised him - what he was dressed in - the name of the lady where he was sent to be nursed. In addition, when he was sent to Ackworth, and the master to whom he was apprenticed (at age 6!).
I also discovered that only the healthiest children were sent on that arduous journey North (as it would be in those days) - as many didn't survive these journeys.
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Thanks Pennines - that is almost the same time as the records I found.
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I have always wondered why the christian name of 'Doctor' was supposedly given to the seventh son of a seventh son. Why? Where did that belief come from? (These are rhetorical questions unless, of course, someone knows the answer).
It seemed to be most common in Lancashire - but maybe that's because I am from Lancashire and have seen it a lot on census records and have a mis-balanced view.
I've not found Doctor for the Seventh Son but Septimus, though I have a few Major's in my family lol, I always thought it was a case of giving them a 'Title' .
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Jinks - yes, Septimus seems logical just for ANY seventh son. The belief I am talking about is the seventh son OF a seventh son and such a person being named Doctor -- and I have just found something about it! After all this time.
http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/jan/26.htm#SEVENTH%20SONS%20AND%20THEIR%20SEVENTH%20SONS
(I hope that link works - it looks strange!!)
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I have a Lorken Wallaker in my tree. His maternal gran was a Lorken. Such instances of unusual given names can be very handy.
I have an Albert Titshall Hubbard or Alfred Titshall Hubbard in my tree. He is descended from my Suffolk Titshall's.
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Pennines - now you come to mention it! I remember one of my work colleagues telling me her Father was a Seventh son of a Seventh son - and therefore he supposedly had mystic / healing powers (or was presume to have) can't remember the Doctor though I'll see if I can find :)
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Oh Wow Jinks -- that's amazing.
So that is more or less a current case, as opposed to 19th century and before - so that belief still existed. Fascinating. Thank you.
On the 'other' side of this health thing - on the BMD Index 1837-1915, there are 2 children whose birth registration gives them a first name of 'Murder'! (One should have been Murdo and the other Murdoch.)