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Ancestors' Naming Patterns Can Help, Hinder Searches

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By SHARON TATE MOODY, Tribune correspondent

Published: October 7, 2007

TAMPA - William Shakespeare once posed the question, 'What's in a name?' Obviously, old Billy wasn't a genealogist. Nothing is more important than the name of the next ancestor we're pursuing.

Names are keys to tracing family lineage. So it's good to know how they can solve a puzzle or pull our research in the wrong direction.

First, let's talk about some of the ways names can be a challenge. Ancestors used nicknames, which quite often could be used in one document but not others. A woman might be referred to as Sarah, her formal name, and elsewhere as Sally, the name she was called at home.

I have found many new cousins in my years of family history research. One still insists our ancestor had two daughters, Mary and Molly, even though Molly was just Mary's informal name.

Nicknames aren't always so obvious. I was stumped by Sucky or Sukey (pronounced sue-kee), until I discovered the name was short for Susannah. I was equally puzzled to find a distant cousin named 'Pink.' Is that something like a boy named Sue? No, it was short for 'Pinkney,' a popular male name in the 1800s.

If only our ancestors could have chosen unusual names, such as Theophilus, Lymon, Overton and Adolphus. They are easier to trace than John, Joseph, Benjamin or William.

Often, following patterns in naming children were more important to our ancestors than it is today.

In American households that were Anglo-Saxon, it was common Moody to name the oldest son after his paternal grandfather. The next son was named after his maternal grandfather.When a third son came along, the father usually made him his own namesake. Often, sons would be given their mother's maiden name or the names of her brothers.

For daughters, the oldest girl was named after her maternal grandmother, typically, and the next girl for her paternal grandmother.

These rules weren't set in stone so they can't be used as proof. But they can be clues that you are on the right track in researching multiple families with the same last name. They can also set you up to make some wrong conclusions.

For instance, George Smathers had seven sons. Each of them followed tradition, naming their oldest son George in honor of their own father. So now we have seven first cousins named George Smathers.

Each of those cousins probably created land, marriage, census and other records about the same time. We have to determine which George created each record when they lived in the same community. The trap is making the mistake of deciding a particular document must have belonged to your ancestor, whether or not it's true.

But this kind of potentially confusing naming pattern can lead to good results. One of my perplexing research problems was solved by following a name on an educated hunch. My third great-grandfather was Gilbert O'Neal, who died about 1842 in Cherokee County, Ala. He was a well-off farmer who probably created good records, but the Cherokee courthouse burned in 1882. All of his life's records went up in smoke.

About the only record my cousins and I had found was his listing in the 1840 census in Cherokee. This was still available because census records are federal and are not kept at courthouses.

Meanwhile, another Gilbert of about the same age appeared in the Macon County census, only a few counties from Cherokee. We followed the Macon Gilbert, hoping he was our Gilbert's cousin and would lead us to the common ancestor with that name.

Our hunch paid off in a search that led us to Johnston County, N.C., where the O'Neals had settled for at least three more generations. The information we found in those records was overwhelming. A secondary reward was confirmation of our research theories that the two Gilberts in the 1840 Alabama census were first cousins.

Morgan To Speak

George Morgan, a well-known genealogist from Odessa, will lecture on 'The Genealogist as a CSI' during the South Bay Genealogical Society meeting Oct. 16 at the SouthShore Regional Library in Ruskin. Cost is $12 and includes lunch at noon, followed by the lecture at 1 p.m. Reservations must be received by Wednesday at P.O. Box 5202, Sun City Center FL. 33571.

Jewish Historian To Lecture

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Tampa Bay will meet at 2 p.m. Oct. 14 at Temple B'nai Israel, 1685 S. Belcher Road, Clearwater. Herman Koren's lecture, 'Thou Shalt Teach Them Diligently Unto Thy Children,' is based on a chapter from his book 'Histories of the Jewish People of Pinellas County, Florida, 1883-2005,' a comprehensive documentation of Jewish life in Pinellas.

Koren is known and respected for his 50 years as a researcher, teacher, consultant and health practitioner. He also wrote 'The 150-Year History of the Jewish Community of Terre Haute, Indiana.'

For information on the society or directions to the meeting, call Sally Israel at (727) 343-1652.

Sharon Tate Moody is president of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Send your genealogy questions and event announcements to her in care of BayLife, The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606 or wmoody3@tampabay.rr.com. She regrets t

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