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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

While catching up on blogs, I saw that Dop has been researching his family and found some new ancestors. I know how exciting it is to make a new discovery, I've been studying my own family since 1977, since I was a teenager.

The given names of my father's great-great-great-grandparents, who were born in the United States in the 1790s through 1820s were:

Ensor and Elizabeth
Daniel and Esther
Andrew and Susannah
Sheldon and Margaret
Alden and Lucretia
Benjamin and Sarah Alvira
Joel and Hannah
Zedekiah and Isabelle
James and Mary
John Jeffrey and Rebecca
John and Mary
John and Sarah

Just looking at the names, you can see a couple of trends. People were just beginning to move away from Biblical names (such as Joel, Hannah, James, Mary) to ones inspired by the romantic novels of that period (Alvira, Lucretia). Prior to the 1790s very few people had two given names, but afterwards more and more people were given two by their "modern" parents. A few males were given family surnames as their given names (Ensor, Jeffrey, Alden, Sheldon).


Alden and Lucretia's family, 1850, Trumbull County, Ohio.

I'm still making new finds, especially because a lot of records are now becoming available online. Every time you solve one mystery, another one appears. I guess that is why I like doing genealogy.

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