How likely is this ?

[greyingrey]

Interested in gut feelings of people who have more experience than I do (ie everyone)

If a man (first half of the nineteenth century) had been married & had a living son (his only child by that marriage), whom he had named after his father (ie the child's grandfather) &, for whatever reason, he left his wife & entered into a bigamous marriage with another woman, would he have named a son from that second marriage after his father, too, or would his attitude have been that only one son should be named after his father ? (suspect there's no "correct" answer)

I've got a situation where a husband may have left his wife & made a bigamous marriage in those circumstances (just not sure if I've got the right man)....if it is the right man then, in the second marriage he names the children after his mother & siblings...but doesn't name any of the sons after his father...again, if I'm correct, the son from the first marriage was named after his father.

Was there any kind of usual "tradition" in these circumstances ?

Thanks

[Jen~Ealogy]

Might it have been that the 'second' son was not actually his but his bigamous wife's?

The man whom I thought was my great grandfather had a son named William (actually his legal wife had William by another man).....then he went through a bigamous marriage to a woman who also had a son named William.

[Guest]

and quite often if one died they named another one after him ?

[Olde Crone Holden]

"Oh, darling, let's call our dear little boy William"

"Erm, no dear, we can't, you see I am bigamously married to you and I already have a son called William..."

OC

[greyingrey]

Sorry....think I may have given the wrong impression.

I've got someone who married legitimately & named his son from this marriage George Thomas (George being his father's name & Thomas being his father in law's name). The man then disappears, but I think he may have married someone else (ie bigamously). He had lots of children in this second marriage, naming them after his mother & siblings, but he didn't name any of the boys George after his father. The son from the first marriage was still alive & lived a normal lifespan. So it strikes me that he didn't name a son George in the second marriage because he already had one (his first wife later remarried & George was brought up by his stepfather) Would this have been "normal" or would most men in these circumstances have named a son in the second marriage after their fathers, even though the one from the first marriage was still alive ?

[Guest]

I would have thought very unlikely but then stranger things have happened .

[greyingrey]

You think it unlikely that he'd have named a son in the second marriage after his father while the son from the first marriage was still alive ? (I know you can never say never).

Thanks

[Guest]

why dont you put the details on here and see what others find ?

[Little Nell]

I don't think you can make a specific assumption from what might happen generally. Generally people name children after their parents and grandparents but I have several examples where children aren't named after parents or grandparents, for no reason that I can see. Or they name a child and give another child the first child's middle name or have two girls called Elizabeth and Eliza.

Naming children is a personal thing and very rarely do we know why parents choose a specific name. In my own family my brother is called Robert because my parents liked the name - only later did I discover that it was a family name, I don't think my Dad knew there were several generations of Roberts before his father's birth.

Similarly, my elder son has middle name Thomas. It might be thought it was after my gt grandfather, but I didn't know his name at the time. He's named after his Welsh great-grandmother's maiden name!

[Olde Crone Holden]

My niece is named Eleanor. It wasn't until relatively recently (long after her birth) that we realised it is a very common name in our family. Future generations will think she was named after her ancestors, but she wasn't, it was just sheer chance.

I don't think you can ever draw conclusions from a negative...no son called George doesn't prove anything one way or the other.

OC

[greyingrey]

Yes, point taken, thanks

[Vivienne]

My niece is named Eleanor. It wasn't until relatively recently (long after her birth) that we realised it is a very common name in our family. Future generations will think she was named after her ancestors, but she wasn't, it was just sheer chance.

I don't think you can ever draw conclusions from a negative...no son called George doesn't prove anything one way or the other.

OC

The same has happened in my family, my youngest named her daughter Lily-Anne Rose & was most put out when I told her they are all ancestral names!
I have also found that cousins who have had no contact have given their children the same names, not necessarily ancestral ones.

I prefer to think it was in the genes or influence from long gone ancestors.;)

[Little Nell]

My niece is called Lucy Rose. A few Xmases ago I gave her father (my brother-in-law) a family tree. Lucy pored over it and got very excited when she found her gt x 2 grandmother was called Rose. Her father said "oh yes, I'd forgotten that!"

[Little Nell]

In my family tree where so many people share the same name, you can never be sure if Elizabeth was named after her mother Elizabeth or her grandmother Elizabeth or her aunt Elizabeth or her father's cousin Elizabeth etc! Any female relative with the same name might have been godmother, and thus the child may have been given that name.

[LangleyValeSue]

I was named Susan because my Mum 'had always wanted a daughter named Susan'. It wasn't until after Mum's death, when I started doing my tree, that I found out my father's mother's father's father's mother was named Susan! Not a very common name way back then and she was actually Susan not Susannah which was more the norm back then.

Grey
I would have thought it unlikely that he would give a 2nd son - even from his bigamous marriage - the same name as his other son from his legitimate marriage.

Not the same thing I know, but my Dad was given the first name Edward after my Grandma's brother who died in WW1. Dad was born just over 2 years after his uncle died, but my Grandma couldn't bear to call her son by her dead brother's name so Dad was always known by his 2nd name, Roy. His father was William Roy and I have no idea where the name Roy came from as I haven't found any other instances of it in the family - apart from my brother who also has Roy as a 2nd name

[greyingrey]

Well, my 2 names are the names of a character who featured in a public service film clip (not for that reason, but because my mother liked the name) & the midwife's name (again, not because of that, but my mother was looking for a name that went with the first & that seemed to fit)

I know that names can come from here, there, & everywhere, but it does strike you, when you look at the names of someone's children & they're basically a run down of the husband's mother's & siblings' names, why he didn't name a son after his father.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I know in at least one case, my ancestor did not name a child after his parents because he hated them both!

In another case, they named two sons with father's name. both boys died in infancy and I think perhaps they felt it would be unlucky to use the name for a third time.

OC

[Lindsay]

OH's tree has a lady who married bigamously and called one of her daughters Charlotte, even though she already had a daughter of that name from her legal marriage. The elder Charlotte was still alive and living with her dad (who must have told everyone his wife had died as he too married bigamously).

On my tree I have a family with 16 children (all survived) with one girl called Eliza and another Elizabeth. Either they'd forgotten or they just couldn't think of any more names.

As others have said, there's no saying what people will do!

[Ellen Proctor]

I think bigamy was more common that I first thought. My 2xg grandmother married in church for the second time in 1868, calling herself a spinster but using her married name. Cheekily she even gave her fathers correct name, surprised no one questioned that. Her first husband died 7 years later.

There's no telling what people would do.

[greyingrey]

Well, I guess when divorce or living together without marriage were considered so shameful, bigamy seemed a better option