I don't understand what happened with this family

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Dennis
Posts: 828
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:58 pm

I don't understand what happened with this family

Post by Dennis » Fri Dec 12, 2014 6:00 am

Hi. My Great Grandfather married a widow. The widow had 2 younger siblings Joseph & William. When she married for the first time she had four children of whom I can't find what happened to the 1st born (a daughter), the other 3 James Joseph & William went off to live with their grandparents (the widows parents) who already had a Joseph & William of their own and in the 1901 census only the 2nd son of the widow's parents, William, is listed (as their son) while the daughter's 3 sons are there as grandchildren. By 1911 the grandparents are gone (possibly back to their homeland in Ireland where they had been born and likely married tho the children are recorded on the 1871 census as born in Lanarkshire. GGranny is recorded as 40 in the 1871 census and hubby as 36 tho on the 1901 census he is recorded as age 77 and she as 63. Seems odd, to me that she would name two of her sons after her brothers.

dennis
Names of interest: Lennox McKenna Airth Skirving Veitch Laird Drysdale Bennett Colledge Baird Blades Barker Dow Mitchell Perkins Rielly Stewart Tulloch Wright Ure, Ritch Richardson, Whyte
Places of Interest: Dunbarney, Forfar, East London (S.Africa)

Anne H
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Posts: 2127
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 5:12 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: I don't understand what happened with this family

Post by Anne H » Fri Dec 12, 2014 1:22 pm

GGranny is recorded as 40 in the 1871 census and hubby as 36 tho on the 1901 census he is recorded as age 77 and she as 63. Seems odd, to me that she would name two of her sons after her brothers.
Hi Dennis,

Not odd at all. Most of my families name their children after their own siblings.

It isn't unusual for ages to be different from one census to the other...that too happens frequently for various reasons. If all other information checks out, then I wouldn't bother about the difference.

Regards,
Anne H

trish1
Posts: 1320
Joined: Mon Dec 26, 2005 3:38 am
Location: australia

Re: I don't understand what happened with this family

Post by trish1 » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:22 am

Hi Dennis

You can search the 1911 Census of Ireland here
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/ - if you want to check for any of the family.

As Anne mentioned - very common with my Scottish ancestors to see children named after their parent's siblings. Mine often included the surnames of married sisters in the child's name - quite handy for tracing family links :)

Trish

And I forgot to mention - one of my ancestors lost 10 years between 1841 and 1901 - her daughter took 6 years off her age at marriage - presumably because she was somewhat older than her husband.

joette
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Location: Clydebank

Re: I don't understand what happened with this family

Post by joette » Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:09 am

My Gggreat-Grandmother surname changed spelling,her age had between 5-10 years shaved of it and she married in the RC Church and Church of Scotland and only had 1 illegitimate child who used her Father's surname.
i suppose there was less bureaucracy and you could call yourself what ever you wanted and if you wanted to be thirty rather than 38 then your business and nobody else's.
Researching:SCOTT,Taylor,Young,VEITCH LINLEY,MIDLOTHIAN
WADDELL,ROSS,TORRANCE,GOVAN/DALMUIR/Clackmanannshire
CARR/LEITCH-Scotland,Ireland(County Donegal)
LINLEY/VEITCH-SASK.Canada
ALSO BROWN,MCKIMMIE,MCDOWALL,FRASER.
Greer/Grier,Jenkins/Jankins

Alan SHARP
Posts: 612
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 9:41 pm
Location: Waikato, New Zealand

Re: I don't understand what happened with this family

Post by Alan SHARP » Wed Dec 24, 2014 4:32 am

Greetings Dennis.

A study of the forms of PATRONYMIC naming [use search at top of page to see where discussed on this site] I found helped me greatly, with my research into my roots in Scotland. While I assumed that the first born was named after the Father [ 1st son descendant ] I found, in fact, it was after the Grand parents. Therefore there were a lot of Young Bill's and Old Bill's, and or, young William's, in our extended families, that came from Scotland. Eventually young Bill became recorded as Old Bill, but to add more confusion were the number of male cousins of similar age in a village or neighbouring villages, sharing grand Father's Christian name.

On the other hand, if the naming paten was closely followed; gaps, and duplications [caused by infant deaths] etc in family trees, give a clue as to what Christian names one should be searching for, in the census returns for the scattered but closely related relatives. Relatives regularly helped out when a family found itself under pressure, for what ever reason.

Happy hunting.

Alan SHARP.

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