It's not hard to comprehend the importance of a so-called family name in the world of genealogy - after all it is always the starting point to try and understand what person belongs to which family. "Solving the Impossible" is focused on families from Great Britain and Australia so that relieves us of many complicated derivations that exist in the rest of Europe, Africa, the Americas and the Middle East to name just a few.
But we still have a major challenge ahead and its going to be chaos! There are no solid rules as to naming a child: luckily many follow a tradition of naming a baby with the surname of the father, and different first names for each of the children. Some may increase the probability of confusion by giving two or even three first names to a child. You can make the confusion even more exciting by introducing "Junior" at the end of the name, or add Roman numerals to I, or II or even IV, signifying that you are taking your father's name and you are in the "x"th in line from the original dad.
Counter to a father's naming protocol is the hot issue of why must many women have to lose their unmarried identity, and previous family identification. This is known as "Patronymics". For a genealogist one of the most difficult areas is to accurately identify female generations that came before, and the loss of their original or "maiden" name. To add to the dilemma are women who may have remarried who now have left multiple surnames. Confusion grows when their first children may have the first husband's surname, but switch over after a remarriage to the second husband's name. To add to the mix consider children that may have a step-parent, a foster or adoptive parent, and the naming challenges that brings. More recently we are seeing the emergence of gay couples marrying, adopting or using a surrogate mother, and making their own rules of naming. Making an assumption of the gender of a child can also be difficult: names such as Alan, Kevin or Raymond, or Isabel, Joan and Mary seem to be quite clear however when names appear such as Lee, Shannon, Ryan, Phoenix, Jessie and Avery no quick assumption can be made.
It was common in the 1700 and 1800's that if a child had died, the next child born of the same sex would take their first name. This does bring some confusion, especially with larger families in trying to decipher which Mary or Edward you are actually dealing with. Always start with the father or mother and be alert for the same christian names used in ther children's names.
Even without these current issues, we still have the phenomena of those who cannot resist shortening or manipulating registered names: Elizabeth becomes Liz or Lizzy, Jonathan becomes John or Jack or Joe, Robert becomes Bob or Bobby or Robbie, Hannah becomes Anne, Ann, Anna, or Annie; Catherine becomes Katie, Kate, Cathie or Katherine; James becomes Jim, Jimmie or Jimmy; Margaret becomes Margie, Madge, Maggie, Peg or Peggy; Stephen becomes Steve or Stevie; Dorothea becomes Dorothy, Dolly or Dora; Henry becomes Harry or Hal, and Isabella becomes Isabel, Isobel, or Bella. Sometimes these shortened or adjusted names appear in newspaper cuttings so be careful not to dismiss information that may have used these type of names.
No wonder Genealogists take so long to get the family history correct.
Getting the surname correct at the start of an investigation cannot be over-stated: it leads the genealogist to discover a wide range of information: birth, marriage and death certificates; census listing; grave inscriptions; family trees; obituaries; probate information; newspaper cuttings and many more.
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