Saturday, March 12, 2016

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Middle Names

Hey genea-folks, 
it's Saturday Night again, 

 time for more Genealogy Fun!

 


Your mission this week, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music!), is to:


1)   It became tradition in English speaking countries to bestow middle names on children during the 19th century and later.  Go back four generations in your ancestral families and list the middle names of the children in these families.  Do you know why those middle names were bestowed?

2)  Share your family middle names on your own blogp ost, in a comment to this post, or on social media like Facebook or Google+.

Here's mine: 

A)  Father:  Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983): Middle name is father's middle name
Mother: Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002): no recent ancestor with this name
Son:  Randall Jeffrey Seaver (1943-????): no recent ancestor with this name
Son:  Stanley Richmond Seaver (1946-????):  Middle name is paternal grandmother's surname
Son:  Scott Frederick Seaver (1955-????): Middle name is father's given name

B)  Father:  Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942):  Middle name is father's middle name
Mother:  Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962): no recent ancestor with this name
Daughter:  Marion Frances Seaver (1901-1999):  Middle name is maternal aunt's middle name
Daughter Evelyn Seaver (1903-1978)
Son:  Stanley Richmond Seaver (1905-1910):  Middle name is mother's surname
Daughter:  Ruth Weston Seaver (1907-1999): no recent ancestor with this name
Son:  Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983): Middle name is paternal grandfather's name
Son:  Edward Richmond Seaver (1913-2004): Middle name is mother's surname
Daughter: Geraldine Seaver (1917-2007)

C)  Father:  Lyle Lawrence Carringer (1891-1976): no recent ancestor with this name
Mother:  Emily Kemp Auble (1899-1977): Middle name is mother's surname
Daughter:  Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002): no recent ancestor with this name

D)  Father:  Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922): no recent ancestor with this name
Mother:  Harriet Louisa Hildreth (1857-1920): no recent ancestor with this name
Son:  Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942): Middle name is father's middle name
Son:  Harry Clifton Seaver (1885-1951): no recent ancestor with this name
Son:  Howard Edward Seaver (1893-1900): Middle name is maternal grandfather's given name

E)  Father:  Thomas Richmond (1848-1917)
Mother:  Julia E. White (1848-1913)
Daughter:  Anne Frances Richmond (1869-1939): no recent ancestor with this name
Son:  Frederic J. Richmond (1870-1875)
Son:  Everett Glens Richmond (1875-1917): no recent ancestor with this name
Daughter:  Grace L. Richmond (1876-1963)
Daughter:  Emily White Richmond (1879-1966): Middle name is mother's surname
Son:  Charles Percival Richmond (1880-1910): no recent ancestor with this name
Daughter:  Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962): no recent ancestor with this name
Son:  Edwin Thomas Richmond (1883-1935):  Middle name is given name of father
Son:  James Henry Richmond (1886-1913): no recent ancestor with this name

F)  Father:  Henry Austin Carringer (1853-1946): no ancestor with this name
Mother:  Abbie Ardell Smith (1862-1944): no ancestor with this name
Son:  David Devier Carringer (1889-1890): maternal grandfather's name was Devier J. Smith
Son:  Lyle Lawrence Carringer (1891-1976): no ancestor with this name

G)  Father:  Charles Auble (1849-1916)
Mother:  Georgianna Kemp (1868-1952)
Daughter:  Emily Kemp Auble (1899-1977):  Middle name is mother's surname

So we have in these names:

*  2 where middle name is father's middle name
*  2 where middle name is father's given name
*  2 where middle name is grandfather's given name
*  3 where middle name is mother's surname
*  1 where middle name is aunt/uncle's middle name

So out of  33 persons in these four generations, only 10 of them had a middle name from a family member.  Four had no middle name, and 3 had initials for middle names (middle name unknown).  16 had unique middle names not in recent family members.


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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


6 comments:

Geolover said...

Although not in my ancestral pedigree, I have numerous relatives named for politicians (some quite obscure). But one notable namesake was a Capt. James Meade from KY, who served in the 17th US Infantry at the siege of Fort Meigs in 1813, where one of my relatives was killed. Some of my cousin-veteran's nephews were named for Capt. Meade, a pointer to the impact that the death of their relative (who did not marry or have children as far as is known so far) had on the family.

I have found it interesting which ancestral branches gave children middle names from their ancestry, and which uniformly did not.

Cheri Hudson Passey said...

Randy,
Here's my post about the middle names in my tree:
http://carolinagirlgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun.html
It was fun to look!
Cheri

Peggy said...

I was given the middle name of Lynn for the town in Massachusetts where I was conceived. I was born across the state in Pittsfield. One of my sibs got a family surname of an ancestor killed in the Civil War and the other got a "pretty" name (no ancestral connection).

Janice M. Sellers said...

I knew previously that many of my Jewish relatives did not have middle names, but I hadn't noticed until tonight that some family groups on the non-Jewish also didn't.

http://ancestraldiscoveries.blogspot.com/2016/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-middle.html

Nancy Ward Remling said...

I found this a bit difficult as many of my ancestors had just middle initials- not complete middle names.

http://remlinggenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/03/middle-names.html

Mary Kircher Roddy said...

Thank's Randy. It was fun to play along. You can see my response at http://www.mkrgenealogy.com/searching-for-stories-blog