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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: rocala on Thursday 20 March 25 12:31 GMT (UK)
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Frequently in my Ancestry UK hints and searches, I find trees which match my own except that many of the people on them, from the 17th and 18th centuries, have middle names. In every case so far, there has been no documentary evidence to back up these additions.
Why do people do this?
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I've found that some people have middle names (such as a family maiden name) on christening and never again. I have one census that gives someone the middle initial A but never again on any other document (so potentially an error of writing). I have other incidents where someone has found multiple different christenings and picked one that has a middle name despite the person not having that name anywhere else (and may be provably wrong). I've also had a few descendants of a person tell me that by word of mouth they had a middle name that I've never seen on paper. Sometimes information comes from a few generations down the line (such as someone dying in the US and the informant having to remember what the parents names were of someone who themselves may have been elderly at death).
And then people copy all the information.
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I've found that some people have middle names (such as a family maiden name) on christening and never again.
My maternal grandfather, born 1869, was an example of that. His baptism included his mother's surname, never to be seen again.
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My 3xgreat grandfather born 1813 was called Thomas John Roberts, but only his baptism says that, he was always just Thomas Roberts in subsequent records. A few decades ago it was much harder for me to find him, if his middle name had been used, it would have been a bit easier.
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Thank you for the replies so far. I would like to stress that I was referring to the 17th and 18th centuries, when it seems middle names were quite rare.
Also, in many cases there are baptism records on the tree or elsewhere online. I have always checked this and have found no evidence of middle names, otherwise I would not count them as a part of the problem.
Why some people are doing this remains a mystery to me.
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Why some people are doing this remains a mystery to me.
One possibility that occurs to me is the need to distinguish between people with otherwise similar or identical names in their village or town - or wider family ?
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Yes Andrew that is a possibility. I have seen trees where name frequency is a problem and it is often solved by adding a number to the name.
I have been tempted to ask why the extra name, but I have found that some people can be very touchy about their trees :)
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Thank you for the replies so far. I would like to stress that I was referring to the 17th and 18th centuries, when it seems middle names were quite rare.
Also, in many cases there are baptism records on the tree or elsewhere online. I have always checked this and have found no evidence of middle names, otherwise I would not count them as a part of the problem.
Why some people are doing this remains a mystery to me.
I found middle names were as rare as hens teeth before around 1750. But I have occasionally seen in Ancestry trees people with middle names who were said to be born in the 1500s. But I have my doubts as to the middle names as they were practically unheard of back then.
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I suppose in some cases earlier on they may have been used patronymically. William (son of) John SMITH. That doesn't explain the trees without a source though.
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In Wales and the West Midlands, I've seen names such as Morgan Thomas Lloyd in the 17th century, a patronymic with the 'ap' left out.
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My tree has quite a few very poor lines including workhouses. I've found "sensitivity" or being "touchy' is often linked to these issues especially when they discover their true identity very late in life or in some cases never at all. So names can be dropped or changed because of deep anger, not least when one is already three generations on from the key facts.
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In the FamilySearch family tree, nine times out of ten when I see a person born pre-1700 with a middle name I check the sources and it's actually two people (or more) who have been conflated. It's usually an attempt by someone to force their ancestor into another family (usually one that has a royal connection).
So for example, someone will have a John Smith born c.1695 and they can't find a christening for him, so they simply decide he is the same as Thomas Smith christened 1694 in a nearby county and they resolve the discrepancy in names by turning both men into 'John Thomas Smith'.
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Yes Andrew that is a possibility. I have seen trees where name frequency is a problem and it is often solved by adding a number to the name.
I have been tempted to ask why the extra name, but I have found that some people can be very touchy about their trees :)
Adding the number to the name is often an American thing, in more recent generations at least.
I have no proof nor am I sure of time lines, and it is likely much later than what you are interested in, but I recall reading that using of middle names was something that the wealthy did.
Have you looked at siblings of your person of interest in case middle names were a family tradition of sorts?
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I have one instance where they have decided that my ag lab is a Doctor and another couple where they have become Sir and Lady and plenty of trees that have copied it. There is nothing to back up this information but plenty that states they are ag labs.
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When I first tried Ancestry I just kept clicking on the suggested ancestor box and eventually ended up with Mary Tudor. (?) . Ridiculous.
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I have no proof nor am I sure of time lines, and it is likely much later than what you are interested in, but I recall reading that using of middle names was something that the wealthy did.
My impression is that it became a C19 fashion to carry forward surnames which were otherwise lost after marriage. My g-g-grandfather John Young (b.1809, m.1827) had 8 or 9 children, and his use of this habit enabled me to identify some events which would otherwise have been missed because of (presumably) mishearings by recorders - e.g. Pearson instead of Piercy, which may have arisen from an unfamiliar non-local accent.
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If we’re allowed to talk about C19, I don’t think anyone has mentioned the Irish custom of naming some sons after their maternal grandfathers, with surname as middle name. In my family, not wealthy, it was first son. So he had a middle name. Other sons had no middle name. But I don’t know about generations before the 1840s.
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My ancestor William Thomas Coombs' dad died when William was 3 in 1831. His name was George Coombs, a coachman, and William's older brother was Matthew George Coombs, a printer. When William married in 1856 he said his dad was Matthew George Coombs, but the right occupation of coachman. Never have I come across George Coombs himself being called Matthew George Coombs. However George himself was the son of Matthew Coombs, so must have named his eldest son Matthew George Coombs after his father and himself. I think William must have got confused, as he lost his dad when he was 3 so never really knew him, and his older brother was called Matthew George Coombs, not his dad.
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There's also the option to add a middle name at Confirmation, at least Anglican ones. I was offered (but declined) this in the 60s. I don't know if this was common in earlier times.
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My g-g-grandfather John and his brother Thomas both invented middle names when they arrived in Australia in the late 1840/early 1850's. Thomas's was James, a recurring name in the family, but John chose Andrew, and there is no Andrew anywhere in the family past or present.
I wondered if having a middle name simply sounded more 'posh' or upmarket.
Bev
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Yes Bev I can well believe that
Thank you everybody for your replies, it has been an education,
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Frequently in my Ancestry UK hints and searches, I find trees which match my own except that many of the people on them, from the 17th and 18th centuries, have middle names. In every case so far, there has been no documentary evidence to back up these additions.
Why do people do this?
I've found the same thing and it's always mystified me as well. And it's rarely because they've randomly picked a record of the wrong person who really does have a middle name, and they've started barking down the wrong tree. Because the dates and places of documented life events for the right (middle name less) person are correct.
I have several people in my tree have genuinely acquired a middle name - meaning they added it themselves.
A brother and sister who after they were orphaned added their parents names (the boy took the father's and the girl took their mother's, of course)
My great aunt who for some unknown reason added Kathleen when she married (not a family name).
A 2 x great grandfather who added his mother's maiden name. Quite a common thing, but he was not baptised with it.
And another thing I've seen is "lengthening" names which the original might be considered a nickname. Probably to sound posher
4 x great grandmother, baptised and married as Betty, became Elizabeth on 1841 census (but form might have been filled in by her adult son who was living with her even though she was listed as Head of household)
Great uncle baptised and registered as Tom. But at death and burial he became Thomas. His death was registered by a coroner, but he was resident at his parents house on his burial record, so I would have expected them to have him buried with the name they registered him as.
I also have people who have "lost" a middle name. Maybe some didn't like their middle name and dropped it. But maybe some people never knew they had one. Before civil registration, the only document which would give the full name was the baptism record - and how many people would have seen their own baptism record? And even after 1837, how many Victorians would bother to look at their birth certificates, to check what their full name really was? Did they even need their birth certificate for anything in those days?
More recently. A friend of mine (born 1954) was always called J..... and thought her forenames were J..... E........ She married as J.... E....... and it wasn't until a couple of years later when applying for her first passport she needed her birth cert (which she had never seen and her parents still had) she discovered she was actually registered as E........ J......
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And another thing I've seen is "lengthening" names which the original might be considered a nickname.
I first found one individual in the 1871 census as Jonathan, brother-in-law of the family I was researching and found his marriage under that name in 1864. By 1881 his wife was a widow, I searched for his birth and death - nothing to fit.
Eventually I found his birth & death had been registered as Jont - a "nickname" which he did not like?
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MollyC - but we have to remember - we didn't have any jurisdiction about our birth registrations, nor can we do anything about how our deaths are registered. :o :-X
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No, he only had his say at his marriage and on the one census form he completed as head of household! (I was looking for his wife's sister and her husband, newly married, who were lodging there.)
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There's also the option to add a middle name at Confirmation, at least Anglican ones. I was offered (but declined) this in the 60s.
I didn't know this! I wasn't invited to add a name. If it had been offered, I would have seized it with both hands. I hate my name and was only given one.
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There's also the option to add a middle name at Confirmation, at least Anglican ones. I was offered (but declined) this in the 60s.
I didn't know this! I wasn't invited to add a name. If it had been offered, I would have seized it with both hands. I hate my name and was only given one.
To be fair, you can call yourself anything you like right now ;D (either for yourself, or to confuse your future descendants ;D )
That does remind me though, my middle name was in honour of someone who married into the family. It wasn't until she died recently that I found out what her actual name was!
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And another thing I've seen is "lengthening" names which the original might be considered a nickname.
A Victorian woman (lady) I have followed for a relative was born, and lived most of her life, as Annie, but chose (or someone did) to be married as Angelina. There's no doubt that it is the same person.
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There's also the option to add a middle name at Confirmation, at least Anglican ones. I was offered (but declined) this in the 60s.
I didn't know this! I wasn't invited to add a name. If it had been offered, I would have seized it with both hands. I hate my name and was only given one.
To be fair, you can call yourself anything you like right now ;D (either for yourself, or to confuse your future descendants ;D )
I know. I tried it when I was very young but my family just laughed at me and nobody else would comply.
I should have done it when I went away to university where nobody knew me. It's far too late now.
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I have an ancestor Mary Newman Smith who wed in 1780 in Foulness, Essex. Yet her children's baptisms say Mary Webb. I guess it was easier to say Mary Webb instead of Mary Newman Webb. She died in 1792 so likely died quite young, and the burial says Mary Webb.
I have never been able to find who her parents were or her baptism, I would say she was born about 1755-1760. When you are getting back that far it often can get harder to trace many ancestors. I wonder if Newman was a family name, or she was illegitimate, or the Newman was after a family friend, famous figure, or local pillar of the community where she was born.
Horatio as a first and middle name increased after October 1805, and Elvis after August 1977.