Sunday, February 11, 2018

Week 6 - Favourite Name - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 6 of #52ancestors has prompted my to look back through my family tree and make notes of some of the more unusual names, and also those that seem to crop up fairly regularly.  There are a number of given names that occur again and again through the generations, and even within one family.  In my Green family a few generations back I have three Isaacs in one generation - the first two died young and the name was reused for the next son each time.  Eventually persistence paid off and the third Isaac Green in that family lived well into his 90's.  His father was named Isaac as well, and the name crops up in several other generations.  In my mother's Pummeroy family William and Alfred are popular, and recur several time across the generations.  This can create an additional challenge in making sure any information I find is linked to the correct person - I have a newspaper article from Trove that mentions William Pummeroy - and I have four of them alive at the time that the article refers to!
The Pummeroy surname itself is quite unusual, especially our Australian spelling which occurs nowhere else.  I have spoken to other Pomeroy / Pomroy families that link to ours back in England (there is also a One Name Study group for the Pomeroy name) but our spelling seems to be unique!  So any other Pummeroys out there - please contact me.
Among female ancestors, besides the ubiquitous Elizabeths, Marys and Janes, Susannah is a name which crops up fairly regularly in the Green family tree, running through several generations.  Another habit I have noticed appear regularly is that of using the surname of a parent or grandparent as the middle name of a child - such as Emma Noble Argent (1849-1935) whose parents were John Thompson Argent and Emma Noble.
My favourite name, possibly because as a first name I have never encountered it anywhere else, is Golding Boggis.  Golding was a farmer born in 1787 in Bures, Suffolk, England, where he lived his entire life.  He married Sarah Prentice 11th July 1823, and died 20 January 1857.  The couple had 6 children :
  • Simeon Golding Boggis (1823-1914)
  • Elizabeth Boggis (1826-1876)
  • Charles Boggis (1827-1891)
  • Emma Boggis (1829-1892)
  • Mary Ann Boggis (1830-1915)
  • William Boggis (1833-1907)
Mary Ann married William Green in 1856, and the surname appears again as the middle name of their granddaughter, my great-aunt Constance Boggis Green.
I will be interested to see which Favourite Name others following the 52 Ancestors challenge choose to highlight!

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