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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Sames on Thursday 19 October 23 18:15 BST (UK)
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Has anyone ever come across family members they are researching that have a surname as their middle name that they have no idea where it came from? I have come across a few that have just stumped me?!? Have no idea where the surname came from? Two are the youngest children and the other one is the oldest and appears to be the only child which seems hard to believe. I have searched and re-searched and have come up empty handed! I was wondering; was it common for the youngest child to have a surname as a middle name? Just curious if anyone has come across this when searching Scottish ancestors. Thanks
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Yes - but mine were English not Scottish. I have 2 females on my fathers side. One b 1864 had the middle name of Bullock & the other b 1871 had McDonald. Absolutely no connection to the FH so were presumably close friends or neighbours
My paternal grandfather (1877) & later my brother (1933) were given the middle name of Gilchrist but I know where that came from
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Middle names are quite rare in Scotland until the 19th and 20th centuries. Most are family members, but others can be friends, neighbours, employers, the minister, the schoolmaster, doctor etc. Later on you find celebrities' names (lots of Hector MacDonalds after the general, for example).
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Yes, I have a Brunton that appeared from nowhere. It was not till I read the father's collected papers that I found that General Brunton sponsored the father in the Honourable East India Company.
Regards
Chas
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In Essex in the 1700s and 1800s I have found several surname sounding middle names in my tree such as Margaret Robjent Boosey. Her aunty had married a Robjent. I also have a Mary Newman Smith who wed in 1780 in Foulness. Not yet found her baptism or family.
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I have both Scottish and English families with middle surnames. Sometimes the middle surname belonged to a family member of an earlier generation and sometimes the middle names are the full given and surname of a benefactor, or doctor, etc.
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None of my mum's family have middle names,apart from her older brother,who apparently was such a difficult birth that he was given the doctor who delivered him's first name as his middle one.
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As well as surnames of people in the news, names associated with events could be used. I heard of a lady whose middle name was Ladysmith (after the battle). She kept this very quiet as it betrayed the year she was born :)
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Far from unusual in the northern counties of Ireland and where not the mother's maiden name, often the source is lost in the mists of time, as records just don't go back far enough to provide an answer. For the parents naming a child back in the day, it's not too great a leap to surmise that a 'surname' middle name might even hail back to their grandparents.
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As well as surnames of people in the news, names associated with events could be used. I heard of a lady whose middle name was Ladysmith (after the battle). She kept this very quiet as it betrayed the year she was born :)
I've encountered a few 'Kitchener' middle names for boys born during or soon after WW1.
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I have many examples of surnames as middle names in my family and families I have researched for others. In some cases the surnames are used as both a middle name as well as forenames in different families/generations.
Some are “accidental” finds rather than recognising the surnames as from an earlier generation.
I have one named after the father’s employer. One family gave the same surname as middle name to all of their nine (I think it was) children. (That was the maiden surname of the mother). Another family gave their children surnames as middle names which I didn’t recognise as family names - I stumbled upon a document written by the father about his family history which explained how each child came to be given these middle names. I recall one in particular who was named “in honor” of a woman who was “kind” to his wife. He always used the term “in honor”. They were a Scottish family.
I’ve found this quite common in the NE and Scotland, though I do have examples from all over.
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I have 1 ancestor whose middle name was his grandmother's maiden name.
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Sometimes middle names "appear" later in life. James Brown's son, called John after John Smith, his maternal grandfather, might appear in the parish register baptised as John Brown or on his birth certificate registered as John Brown. Later in life he might start to call himself John Smith Brown.
I have even come across a John with no middle name who went on to marry a lady with a middle name and then gave all his children middle names. Feeling left out, he awarded himself the fictitious middle name "Milton".
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2 out of my 3 children have ancestral surnames as their middle name. One is now a given Christian name and the other amuses my 3 year old as it is what a lot of England is getting.
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I have a 3xGtGf living in Overton, Flintshire who suddenly at the age of 70 adds 'Stant' as his middle name for the 1861 Census only.
I have been unable to find who 'Stant' refers to or who they may be, but it is used as a surname in the area.
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Surnames used as middle names are very common in the paternal side of my tree right up to the present day. In my generation, I think I'm the only one who did not get a surname as a middle name.
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I have 1 ancestor whose middle name was his grandmother's maiden name.
I also have my Grandma's maiden name as my middle name along with other siblings :)
Rosie
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Also, before middle names were fashionable, a surname as a middle name in a baptism of a base child might indicate who the father was.
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I have one surname as a middle name in my tree which has been repeated through 5 generations, originally being that of a lady born in 1768.
I also have a 2 x great grandfather, baptised without a middle name, but acquired his mother's maiden name as a middle name by the time he married. He described his Ag lab father as a Farmer on his marriage record, and himself as a butler. But I know he worked in a modest household which only had two or three servants. His next job was as a waiter in a hotel, so I think he may have been "bigging up" his status, maybe giving himself a middle name was part of that.
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I have numerous surnames as middle names in my family. Some are named after employers, others after friends.
One particular couple gave all their children middle names which were the surnames of the people their own siblings married.
One of my sons has my own maiden name as a middle name, because he was born six days after my father died, my father was the last male in our line to bear that name.
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Lots of examples in my tree for a variety of reasons already stated. The surname of the father of an illegitimate child is a fairly common reason. The surname of a man of some status who married into my father's line was another that was passed down as a middle name for male children over many generations as far as my grandfather. Unfortunately because he was orphaned at a young age and knew nothing of his family or indeed the middle name that he had been christened with, it stopped there. Had I known at the time my children were born I would have carried it on, but too late now.
Others include the maiden surname of the mother given as a middle name to all her children, some of whom in subsequent generations dropped their father's surname and their mothers' maiden name became their family surname from that point on.
And a child who was give as fore and middle names the fore and surname of a man who married his aunt a couple of weeks after he was born, presumably in honour of their impending marriage.
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Then we have surnames used as forenames ;)
In my paternal tree, the Garrad and Baker families were closely interlinked.
So I have a Baker Garrad and a Garrad Baker :D
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I have numerous surnames as middle names in my family. Some are named after employers, others after friends.
One particular couple gave all their children middle names which were the surnames of the people their own siblings married.
One of my sons has my own maiden name as a middle name, because he was born six days after my father died, my father was the last male in our line to bear that name.
The idea of an employer as a middle name made me chuckle.
I wonder if any current births have middle names such as Amazon, Vodaphone or Royal Mail? ;D
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I have a Relative - Luke Oil Crawford
The Registrar didn't believe the Mother and asked her to Sign that's what she wanted as the Informant
She made her X on the Certificate as her Mark
Her Husband probably wasn't pleased with Luke Oil
He wanted the same Names as his which included his Mother's Maiden Name = Hoyle
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My 2xGtGm was Emma Toplis who marries a John Wilkins. So son is named Toplis Wilkins.
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I have an ancestors brother Newman Jacques in Suffolk, his mother was a Newman.
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Also, before middle names were fashionable, a surname as a middle name in a baptism of a base child might indicate who the father was.
This happened with one of my ancestors,I found it was the neighbours surname from one of the censuses but they had three sons all living at home
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I have a William Warden Walder in my tree, I think the middle name was after the local aristocrat, Warden Sergison/Sargison.
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I guess in one way our male line was lucky. My great grandfathers surname was James, with my grandfather named James Arthur James. The James has followed through many lines as a middle name.
Another great grandfather surname was Vincent and two times grandparents with surnames of Williams and Ellis. Ellis has continued as a name.
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My great great grandmother ‘s maiden surname was Cordley.
She was born and lived and died in Lincolnshire, Pinchbeck Fen .
A large family with many sons and just two daughters , one being my paternal great grandmother .
Five of her sons and their wives and children emigrated to N,S, W. In the 1850’s, never to return.
The goldfields of Bathurst and Sofala.
She had a younger son who had as his middle name, her maiden name ,I wish I had known when my sons were being baptised, I would have used it
as it has a dignity which I must admit is probably because I know if my G G grandmother’s immense fortitude when her son died and others were in N.S.W. And the eldest preparing to emigrate also, he was a Methodist Preacher.Henry Cole. The family tree out there is immense.
She died alone .
Viktoria.
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My great great grandmother ‘s maiden surname was Cordley.
She was born and lived and died in Lincolnshire, Pinchbeck Fen .
A large family with many sons and just two daughters , one being my paternal great grandmother .
Five of her sons and their wives and children emigrated to N,S, W. In the 1850’s, never to return.
The goldfields of Bathurst and Sofala.
She had a younger son who had as his middle name, her maiden name ,I wish I had known when my sons were being baptised, I would have used it
as it has a dignity which I must admit is probably because I know if my G G grandmother’s immense fortitude when her son died and others were in N.S.W. And the eldest preparing to emigrate also, he was a Methodist Preacher.Henry Cole. The family tree out there is immense.
She died alone .
Viktoria.
I have some ancestors from just down the road from Pinchbeck. From the villages of Fosdyke and Algarkirk and Wigtoft.
My ancestor Thomas Roberts was quite hard to find due to his common surname but as more records came online it became easier. He was married twice and wed his first wife in Ireland and 2nd wife in London. He had 2 children with Goodacre as a middle name, one by his first wife, and one by his 2nd wife. Was very handy in tracking down the right Thomas.
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I have some ancestors from just down the road from Pinchbeck. From the villages of Fosdyke and Algarkirk and Wigtoft.
So do I; Merryweather, Felts and Williamson, from Pinchbeck and Pode Hole, later Gosberton and Spalding also. Sorting out the various Merryweathers almost caused me to tear out what little is left of my hair. Several families with the same first names often repeated in each of them, but the surname spelt in so many different ways, even amongst various records relating to the same person or family. I ended up doing a one name study of the whole area to try and work how who belonged to whom and where. Mostly successful!
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I have some ancestors from just down the road from Pinchbeck. From the villages of Fosdyke and Algarkirk and Wigtoft.
So do I; Merryweather, Felts and Williamson, from Pinchbeck and Pode Hole, later Gosberton and Spalding also. Sorting out the various Merryweathers almost caused me to tear out what little is left of my hair. Several families with the same first names often repeated in each of them, but the surname spelt in so many different ways, even amongst various records relating to the same person or family. I ended up doing a one name study of the whole area to try and work how who belonged to whom and where. Mostly successful!
I descend from the Roper, Field and Sliford families of the areas. One Lincs ancestor owned land in Nottinghamshire. This was before middle names became more popular though. A Colchester resident Essex ancestor mentioned her relatives in Lincolnshire in her will.
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I have a number of interconnected families where the name Alison/Allison/Allinson is a MALE forename - all within the West Riding.
Plus:
Wadsworth as a forename, and also Firth - all the above as part of the Appleyard family. Plus Fairbank in my Kendall collection.
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I can’t get to my records as my son is here temporarily, —— a year and four months and has had to takeover the bedroom with the walk in closet where all my records are ,but Williamson rings a bell,a young woman who was married to one of the Coles who emigrated on board “ The Harriet “1853 if memory serves me correctly.She sailed with her husband and his two brothers and their families.
Passenger lists are available but it is such a long time since I researched that I have forgotten details.
Viktoria.
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I can’t get to my records as my son is here temporarily, —— a year and four months and has had to takeover the bedroom with the walk in closet where all my records are ,but Williamson rings a bell,a young woman who was married to one of the Coles who emigrated on board “ The Harriet “1853 if memory serves me correctly.She sailed with her husband and his two brothers and their families.
Passenger lists are available but it is such a long time since I researched that I have forgotten details.
Viktoria.
Our Pinchbeck and Algarkirk ancestors lived not far from the Norfolk/Lincolnshire border as well.
I have a George Forster Wilson in my tree, his mother a Forster from Tanfield, Co Durham.
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No Cordleys in my tree. I have one Cole, but from Depwade in Norfolk. Not actually related, but she married the son of the woman who fostered my grandfather in Suffolk.
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Then we have surnames used as forenames ;)
My maternal grandmother was born a Liversidge; her grandfather Kinder Liversidge was given just the surnames of his parents.
My father's middle name, Cresser, was the surname of his gg-grandmother born in 1784. That name had also been given to two earlier descendants.
My wife has been irritated all her life by her middle name, Whitfield, because it had no possible use as an alternative to her first name. Funnily enough, although it has been handed down it does not appear to have been a recent family surname; it originates in Alston in the Pennines where it pops up quite frequently. I have found a few Whitfield Whitfields.
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I like the name Kinder, has a dignity about it .
Perhaps it brings to mind the movement for hikers to walk unimpeded through our lovely countryside , there was a mass “ sit in “ at Kinder Scout in the 1930’s, against gamekeepers etc from threatening and removing walkers from estates where sheep roamed freely.
They were also grouse moors and the gentry did not want them upset, there would not be much to shoot if the grouse left!
Can’t remember the name of the chap who organised the sit in .
I ‘m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way,
And I earn my living the hard working way,
I may be a wage slave on Mondays .
But I am a free man on Sundays.
Yes I like Kinder.
Viktoria.
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I've one tree with families who seem particularly keen on using surnames as middle names, such as Millgate, Redman, Wyborn, Clayson. Usually it helps with searches, but with the usual repeated fornames, I have 3 Edward Millgate ARCHERs, & 4 Richard Redman ARCHERs.
One lucky man was given 6 forenames, 2 of which are surnames - Richard Redman Samuel William George Abbott ARCHER.
Annoyingly my 4xGt grandfather was a Thomas MILGATE (one L) but I haven't (yet) found a connection with the other tree.