Use of Second Names

In a post on the Pharos Blog in May of last year, Are middle names just a fashion statement?, Helen Osborne commented on the use of second names in her family, and in English families historically, in general. She noted that the furthest back ancestor she could find in her family to have a second name was in 1744. She wondered about the origin of second names – when it became commonplace to give offspring a second name.

Middle names when used in the past were generally the mother’s or possibly a grandmother’s surname. Having such information is an important genealogical tool, as one can usually go a long way to identifying the families going further back.

For those of us who go by our second name, the question was of more than just passing interest.

A number of readers commented, using their own family history as illustrations, but only one person could find a member of their family further back – a relative born in 1711. Even that one was qualified as his background may have been Dutch. Second names appear to have been much more common in continental Europe than in the British Isles. No one had a person in their family tree born in the 17^th century who was given a second name. One person offered the location of websites put together by Hugh Wallis, on which he gives second name indexes for many English and Scottish counties, all sourced from the International Genealogical Index (IGI) lists.

My own comments on the Pharos blog post were as follows:

The earliest I have is a 4th great-grandmother, Mary Collins Plier, born in 1754, in Cornwood parish, Devon. The baptism entry does not show the name of a father although she had a brother, James Collins, also with no father listed, indicating the father’s name might have been Collins.

 

1754 February 22 – entry in Cornwood parish baptism register for Mary Collins Plier, daughter of Rachael Plier.

1756 February 13 – entry in Cornwood parish baptism register for James Collins Plier, son of Rachel Plier.

Another 4th great-grandmother was baptized as Jane Treby Shepheard in 1769, also in Cornwood parish. None of her siblings had a second name and the name, Treby, does not appear with any other family member. Treby was the surname of a prominent land-owning family in the area. Jane Treby’s father, Nicholas Shepheard, was also a land owner, tax assessor, churchwarden and otherwise important individual in the community. He is listed in the Devon Freeholders lists between 1762 and 1783. He may have been a friend of the Treby family and was undoubtedly involved with them in both parish and business affairs.

 

1769 August 11 – entry in Cornwood parish baptism register for Jane Treby Shepard, daughter of Mr. Nicholas and Mrs. Mary Shepard

The early use of second names may have been more common in mainland Europe, as Helen commented. I have one family line that originated in Germany – surname Kettenring. The earliest individual found so far by family researchers is Hans Jacob Kettenring, born in Pflaz, Bayern, Germany, in 1595. Another line had the name of De Busk in Virginia with possible (unconfirmed) connections to France. A 4th great-granduncle, William Province De Bouse, born in 1744, is shown in the family tree.

In my work as a Devon Online Parish Clerk I have transcribed all of the parish records for Cornwood, Harford, Plympton St. Mary and Plympton St. Maurice parishes which gives me primary name data. In Cornwood only eight children, out of a total of 930, were baptized with a second name between 1685 and 1750. The earliest was in 1695. Four of them were base-born indicating the second names had something to do with the unnamed father. One was the child of a local baronet. In Harford, two of 124 children were baptized with a second name between 1699 and 1750. In Plympton St. Maurice, six of 1,720 children baptized had a second name, the earliest in 1729. In Plympton St. Mary parish, 5,578 children were baptized between 1602 and 1750. Twenty-one of them had a second name and, of these, four were base-born. Curiously, three children from different families, baptized between 1730 and 1736, all had the second name of Pearse. There is no explanation for the coincidence although the Pearce/Pearse family appears to have been important well back into the 1600s in the area.

As to Helen’s question about whether the use of a second name was fashionable, it seems more likely, at least early on, that it was used in acknowledgement of family connections or ancestors or as a sign of respect for other important people within the community.

I have no idea why my parents picked Wayne for my second name. According to the Behind the Name website, it reached its highest use in the mid-1940s, which fits me, so they may have been taken with the general popularity – although it only ever reached about 0.5% of names given to baby boys. It’s still a mystery!

All baptism images reproduced here are used with the kind permission of the rights holder, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office. Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

Family Misfortune

Sometimes when you look through the parish registers and other data concerning a particular family you just have to feel sorry for them. That was the case with one of my 1^st cousins (5X removed) in Cornwood, Devon.

John was one of those members of my family who was baptized as Shepheard but buried as Shepherd. Part of the reason I think the spelling of his name changed over the years was that John could not read or write and either did not recognize the difference in spelling or accepted what the Vicar recorded as the "proper" way to spell his name. On his 1842 marriage record in Ashburton parish, Devon, he is shown as John Shephard. On the 1851 census he and his family were recorded as Shiphard; on the 1861, 1881 and 1891 censuses as Shepherd; and on the 1871 census as Shepheard. In the parish baptism register, on the occasion of the baptism of his children, he was variously shown as both Shepherd and Shepheard.

 

December 24, 1815 entry in Cornwood parish baptism register for John Shepheard, son of Thomas and Ann Shepheard; image courtesy of copyright-holder - Plymouth and West Devon Record Office

May 15, 1842 entry in Ashburton parish marriage register for John Shephard and Betsey Cleave;  image courtesy of copyright-holder - Plymouth and West Devon Record Office

July 22, 1898 entry in Cornwood parish burial register for John Shepherd, aged 82;  image courtesy of copyright-holder - Plymouth and West Devon Record Office

John and  Betsey had six children. One of their first setbacks was the deaths of the two oldest in 1850, Susanna at the age of seven and William at the age of 5. The burial register does not record the cause of death but it was likely one of those diseases that made their rounds among communities in the mid-19^th century. In Cornwood parish, between 1848 and 1852, of the 122 total burials, 51 of them children under the age of 17 – a very high ratio.

John was a farm labourer all of his life so likely never made great wages. The family probably lived from hand-to-mouth most of the time. By the time his children were teenagers, most of them were out working, generally in menial or labouring jobs. One daughter, Harriet was fortunate in being sponsored to attend Dame Hannah Rogers’ School in Plymouth. The school was endowed in 1764, originally “for the maintenance and education of poor unfortunate children” of Devon and Cornwall.

Harriet came back to Cornwood but not without finding a bit of trouble. She had a daughter, Louisa, a “base child” according to the entry in the baptism register, in 1865. Harriet married George Haynes, the local bootmaker, in 1869 – signing her name as Shepheard, it might be noted. Louisa lived with her grandparents, John and Betsey, for a number of years apparently, even while her mother, stepfather and half siblings were living right next door. That, of course, could have been a convenience of space not necessarily a rejection by Harriet’s new husband.

Not all of Harriet’s sisters were as lucky with their education. After a few years working as a general servant, Susanna, born in 1856, was married at the age of 19 to a local boy, William Phillips. Other sisters, however – Ruth Ann, born in 1851, and Elizabeth, born in 1854 – both ended up in the Plympton St. Mary Union Workhouse.

Ruth Ann had a daughter, Harriet Blanche, born in the workhouse in 1872. Harriet also lived with her grandparents for a number of years. She went on to marry and raise a family of her own in Cornwood. Elizabeth had two children out of wedlock in the workhouse, James Ernest, in 1878, and Edith Virginia, in 1880. Both children died there, James at the age of 10 weeks and Edith as a child of eight years. I have not yet found what happened to Ruth Ann or Elizabeth.

The family of John and Betsey was not without tribulation and misfortune, perhaps like many other families of the day. In the end, several branches prospered. John and Betsey lived to ripe old ages of 83 and 86, respectively. It is likely John worked right up until near his death. He was still shown as an agricultural labourer on the 1891 census, at the age of 75.

Betsey and John Shepherd of Tor, Cornwood – about 1890 (photo courtesy of Pat den Hollander and Tom Maddock, descendants; image from T. H. Maddock Collection)

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

Origin of Surnames

I am taking a genealogy course right now called Introduction to One-Name Studies, from Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Limited. The purpose, for me at least, is to learn more about how to search for and compile information about the surnames in my family.

One can only go back so far, of course. We are restricted by the availability of records about people, usually terminating in the 1500s. We are also limited in our reviews by the way in which people spelled their names or, more to the point, how others spelled them when entering information into BMD registers or other official documents. I wrote about some of the ways my own surname was recorded in my post of May 13, 2014.

Of interest to many people, though, is how their families got their name in the first place. With my family, we can probably assume that, way back when, some ancestor was a sheep-herder. Where we got the double vowel is another question entirely.

There are many ways in which surnames came into use. In most of Europe naming systems are patronymic, that is, children are given the same surname as their father or at least named with respect to the father. For some common surnames such as Anderson or Thompson, both of which appear in my family tree, it seems obvious that a child might originally have been referenced as being the son of Andrew or Thomas. Many countries have specific endings for males or females: -sen and –datter for sons or daughters, respectively, in Denmark; -s, -se or –sen for children of either gender in the Netherlands; -wicz for sons or –ovna for daughters in Poland. Some names designated birth status. “Fitz” apparently preceded a name in France or Old England for children who were illegitimate – FitzGerald.

English names do not seem to designate between the sexes. My wife’s 4^th great-grandmother’s last name, according to the parish records of the Shetland Islands, was Edwardsdaughter. a practice that may have come from the Viking settlers of the region.

Other surnames arose from: the occupation of an individual – Carpenter, Cooper or, yes, Shepherd; the location near where he lived – examples being Hill, Brook or York; or personal characteristics – Tall, Short or Smart.

The first group of people to use surnames was the nobility, mostly for describing where they were from or what lands they controlled. Surnames seem to have come into use following the Crusades or at least during the Middle Ages. Quite possibly, as population expanded significantly during this period, it became more necessary to differentiate people with the use of some description. A boy named John, whose father was William, became John, son of William or Williamson. A girl name Mary, whose father was a blacksmith, might be called Mary Smith. Her friend might be Mary Mason because her father worked as a stonecutter.

There is an interesting website called Behind the Name where one can search for the source and usage of a given surname. For example, one of my wife’s 3^rd great-grandfathers was Alexander Jenkins. Jenkin is apparently “from the given name Jenkin, a medieval diminutive of Jen, itself a Middle English form of John.” So Jenkin might be Little John and Jenkins might be child of Little John? Jenkins is quite a common name – ranking number 83 out of 88,799 surnames on the 1990 USA census and 97 out of 500 on the 1991 England and Wales census.

The search for meanings and origins of family names can be both fascinating and frustrating. The farther one goes back, the more difficult it becomes to trace surnames but a real treat when you discover a new document that names a related individual.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.