Family surnames as first names.

[coombs]

Certainly may be a help if the baptism and parents of the ancestor with the distinctive middle name cannot be found.

Claire and I are distant cousins thought the Lucking's of Foulness.

I think my Isaac Deeks came from Glemsford.

[smudwhisk]

I think my Isaac Deeks came from Glemsford.

Ann Frost's great grandfather was Isaac Deeks the elder buried at Glemsford in 1658.  We haven't followed forward many of the later lines, concentrating more on the immediate generations and researching backwards.  There were quite a few Isaac Deeks in Glemsford and surrounding parishes.

[Treetotal]

My Father had the middle name "French" and I have yet to find anyone else in his family line with that name, nobody in the Family knows why.
Carol

[Andrew Tarr]

In the Holmfirth area of West Yorkshire, there was a long tradition of giving one son his mother's surname as his first name.

And I have a Kinder Liversidge born 1807 in Lockwood (Huddersfield).  The Kinder was passed down to later generations - I think the last one died early in WW1 aged 18.

[barryd]

The most prevalent family surnames as first names in my research come from Stanhope, County Durham and North Carolina, USA.

[coombs]

I think my Isaac Deeks came from Glemsford.

Ann Frost's great grandfather was Isaac Deeks the elder buried at Glemsford in 1658.  We haven't followed forward many of the later lines, concentrating more on the immediate generations and researching backwards.  There were quite a few Isaac Deeks in Glemsford and surrounding parishes.

We could be distant cousins then. Do you descend from Ann Frost directly?

My ancestor Thomas Stock was born in 1718 in Bardfield, to John and Ann and he had a brother Bush Stock. Maybe Ann's maiden name as I cannot find a likely marriage for John to Ann.

[smudwhisk]

We could be distant cousins then. Do you descend from Ann Frost directly?

Yes.

[JAKnighton]

The furthest removed I have seen a surname being passed down is the name "Healy" which appears in my family tree.

My 4x great grandparents had a son called Healy Thomas Knighton. It stood out because all the other siblings had either normal names like George, William and Sarah, or biblical names like Jabez and Amos.

Going back another generation, my 4x great aunt Ruth Knighton had a son called Healy Thomas Cunnington.

I expected to find the surname "Healy" by tracing the Knighton family further back, but it doesn't appear.

Both Healy Thomas Knighton and Healy Thomas Cunnington passed the name down to their children, and in the case of Healy Knighton it is still used by his descendants today.

One day I discovered that Ruth Knighton was once a housekeeper for a Healy Thomas Chapman! As far as I've checked, there is no family connection so he must have been well regarded by the family.

I wanted to see where Healy Thomas Chapman got the name from, so I traced his family tree backwards and found out it came from his great grandmother Mary Healy!

Hopefully you've been able to follow this!

[coombs]

I have a Stannard Plumb born in 1807. His great grandfather was Stannard Allen born in 1700 and Stannard Allen's mum was a Stannard. So it does show that a surname as a middle name can be several generations back.