Genealogy Chat

Has anyone else come across this odd situation? A man appears to have had 2 daughters both baptised Mary, one was his eldest daughter by wife 1 in 1709, the other his youngest with wife 2 in 1734. This wouldn't be unusual, but for the fact that the older Mary was still alive, albeit married herself, when the younger Mary was born. This relates to a small village where I have checked for other men of the same name - it isn't a common surname- and found none. I have also checked for other Mary's of the name surname who might have been of different parents, & might have married in the parish, again I have found none.
This seems so strange, that despite the results of my searches, I am relunctant to believe that a man would have baptised a daughter with the same name as an older daughter still who was still alive.
Julie
Hence I would be interested to hear if anyone has come across the same situation.

Yes my paternal grandfather had two brothers both named James born aprox 2 years apart but with different second Christian names
They were known by their second names

One was born c1879 and the other c1880

Thanks Shirley, the closest I had come before was Elizabeth and Eliza as sisters.
Julie

Quite possible!

In fact, I remember reading somewhere years ago that in the 14th and 15th centuries it was sometimes possible to find 2 or 3 or more children in the family with the same name, and all would be alive .........

It seems that minor knights would ask some more important person to be godfather for a boy and give the child the godfather's name as an honour. The hope was that the godfather would "help" his godson to get on in life.

But then the same guy would be asked to be godfather for 1 or more later boys, and they would also be given his name

Sylvia, thanks for the info, I am beginning to feel more comfortable that this isn't as unrealistic as it first seemed.

June

it also depends on whether the man's second wife had more say in the name of her child :-D

It would be less unusual if the two Mary's were step-sisters rather than half-sisters.

Found it in my family too ( late 1800's)
The daughters from 2 wives were both called Mary and both survived into adulthood.
It appears that both wives wanted a child named for their OWN mother.

On a lighter note, my friend ( daughter No4 born 1960's) and all 3 of her older sisters have the first name of MARY.
All but sister No2 are known by their middle name.
Sister No2 has a middle name also but, she is the only one known as... Mary!!

Why No2 and not No1 ?

Thanks GlasgowLass for yet further confirmation that my instance, though odd, isn't completely unbelieveable.

When I was young I had a pair of identical twins as friends.

One was John Colin and the other Colin John! :-S :-S

Both answered to both names!! :-S :-S

:-D :-D :-D


parents ran out of names obviously!!

Then there's the boxer George Foreman who had 5 sons and named them all George.