Time to revisit Naming Patterns

I’ve recently gone hog wild on the Scotlands People website. I must admit, this time I didn’t even use the FamilySeach indexes to help me along. Probably not a smart move on my part, but oh well now!

All that matters is that I have many names to analyze for the Love family.

To start off, I’ll be using the naming pattern that I wrote about here and Irish ones found here to “guess” what the key names will be to go back one generation from my current Love family generation wall, Andrew Love.

WHAT I CAN “GUESS” ABOUT ANDREW USING SCOTTISH PATTERNS AND ANDREW’S CHILDRENS’ NAMES.

  • Andrew’s father is possibly named Robert.
  • Andrew’s mother is possibly named Jean.
  • Andrew’s fraternal grandfather is possibly named Andrew.
  • Andrew’s maternal grandfather is possibly named William.

WHAT I CAN “GUESS” ABOUT ANDREW USING IRISH PATTERNS AND ANDREW’S CHILDRENS’ NAMES.

  • Andrew’s father is possibly named Robert.
  • Andrew’s mother is possibly named Jean.
  • Andrew’s third son was possibly named after Andrew.
  • Andrew’s third daughter was possibly named after her mother, Agnes.
  • Andrew’s oldest brother is possibly named Thomas.
  • Andrew’s second oldest brother is possibly named William.

WHAT I FIGURED OUT ABOUT ANDREW’S PARENTS AND SIBLINGS FROM THE ACTUAL RECORDS.

  • Andrew’s father is named Robert (Scottish – 1/4, Irish – 1/6)
  • Andrew’s mother is named Jean (Scottish – 2/4, Irish – 2/6)
  • Andrew’s fraternal grandfather is named James (Scottish – 2/4)
  • I don’t have Andrew’s maternal grandfather yet (Scottish – 2/4)
  • Andrew’s third son is named Andrew (Irish 3/6)
  • Andrew’s third daughter is named Agnes, like her mother (Irish 4/6)
  • Andrew’s oldest brother is not named Thomas, but he did have a brother named Thomas. (Irish 4/6)
  • Again Andrew’s second oldest brother is not named William, but he did have a brother named William. (Irish 4/6)

IN CONCLUSION

  • Naming patterns aren’t an exact science.
  • Just because the Loves stuck to more of the Irish patterns doesn’t mean they’re Irish. It also doesn’t mean that they aren’t Irish. It just means that they used family names.
  • Naming patterns are fun to use, but usually I only find that the parents part of them fit into my families.

Aren’t naming patterns a great way to make you look more at your family? I’m very excited to have found all 9 of Andrew’s siblings (I think that’s all!) and even his parents and grand parents. I’m once again blocked. I haven’t completely filled in Robert Love’s parents and siblings. I don’t even know if I have them all. What I do know is that in Beith parish, there is a farm/village called Hoodsyard and it’s because of Hoodsyard that I was able to distinguish my Loves from all the other Loves. Now to figure out where the other ones fit into the family!

Making some Observations

I worked quite a bit yesterday on my maternal lines. The only drawback is it burned me out a little bit on researching. So I decided to switch to my paternal line, and just kind of observe it in pedigree format in FTM2012.

click for full size

Here are some things I’ve noticed:

  1. Josephine Doremus is the only one of my 3rd great grandparents that wasn’t an immigrant.  All others that are listed were born in other countries
  2. The missing spots in my 3rd great grandparents aren’t immigrants… at least I don’t think. I have possible parents for both Jennie Featherson and Sarah/Sadie Sutcliffe, just no paper trail yet.
  3. My Moore line is completely Irish.
  4. My Thorward line is a quarter German, a quarter ?, and half Scottish.
  5. My Redford line  is half English and half ?.
  6. My Parkin line is half English and half ?.
  7. All the known immigrant ancestors on my paternal line were all here before 1875.
  8. This entry has been sitting idle for 45 minutes because I’m watching Ugly Betty on Netflix Streaming.
  9. I probably shouldn’t “work” in a room with a TV, much less one with Instant Streaming capabilities.
  10. Featherson and Sutcliffe don’t sound like normal names. They’re not exactly Thorward, if you get my drift, but they aren’t Moore or Johnson either.

Did I find Andrew Love’s birth record?

Okay, I’m so behind this week, but I’m rolling with the punches. In my previous Love family posts, I talked about Martha’s birth record leading me to James. Then I talked about James’s birth record adding weight to a document I was hoping was Andrew Love’s birth record.

Above, you see the three children that I found birth records for in parish records. If you have your eagle eyes on, you’ll also notice that in all three records, they show “Andrew Love of Hoodsyard”. I took that and added in an estimated birth date from various records.

I had to scale the image town but this is the record I found for Andrew Love. There were two records in this parish for my time frame. Both Andrew Love, but one in 1805 and one in 1806. The one you see above is the one I think is the one I’m looking for. I’ll tell you the reasons why.

  1. Hoodsyard is mentioned as the birthplace.
  2. Robert and Jean are the parents. Andrew used both those names with his children.
  3. The other record used the names Hugh and Janet. I have none of those names throughout my Love family tree.
  4. The other record didn’t mention Hoodsyard.

So while, neither of the last two reasons are concrete reasons to dismiss the 1805 record, the first two outweigh the last two in my mind.

James Love, came out of nowhere

In my previous post about Martha Love’s birth record, I was very surprised to find out that Martha was actually the third child of Andrew Love and Agnes Hamilton.

The problem was that we were going off the records in America and tracing back. I had known there was a first born Robert, through my long lost cousin Grace (is she still long lost if we e-mail regularly?). It was even Grace who clued me into Martha who married Duncan Walker, and through them I was able to identify one of my Mystery Monday posts. Which I was then able to smack myself upside the head because Duncan and Martha were living next door to Andrew and Agnes in the 1880 census.

Just remember folks there is a reason I named my blog the Misadventures of a Genealogist. I don’t do things the easy way, I do them the banging your head against a brick wall way!

Here we have the second child of Andrew Love and Agnes Hamilton. ((Beith Parish (Ayrshire, Scotland). Old Parish Registers, OPR 581/3, James Love birth (1829); New Register House, Edinburgh.)) Unfortunately James doesn’t appear with the family in censuses or any other records so far. Another great thing about this record is another mention of “Hoodsyard”. This place is mentioned on a few of the birth record for Andrew’s children.

In fact, it might just help me find Andrew’s birth record, but you’ll have to stay tuned for that! I have to head to the grocery store before the week begins again and then I have to update my website and e-mail my Love connections with all my progress!

Looking at the Original Pays Off

Have you ever made tons of progress in the indexed database from Ancestry.com or FamilySearch? I have! It always makes me feel so accomplished.

One of the things you have to remember about these indexes is this. It’s not the original. I’m no expert but I have learned this. Nothing is like seeing the original document. The best of circumstances would be in person but because of logistics, this is not always possible.

With the advances in technology, we’re definitely making progress though! I decided to go ahead and purchase some credits from Scotlands People the other day. I bought enough to really have some fun. I ended up getting the images for almost all of the children of Andrew Love and Agnes Hamilton, some of the Menzies family. I even ordered a copy of John Menzies and Jane Ferris‘ marriage record before I realized I could just use a credit and print out the record. Oh well!

In the index on FamilySearch, I would have been lucky to have had the parents names indexed. Then I would have been even luckier if both the birth and baptismal dates were recorded. If only one was recorded I would have been left wondering which date it was, baptismal or birth.

Love > Martha, Eldest Daughter and Third Child of Andrew Love, Hoodsyard and of Agnes Hamilton, his spouse. Born 29 July. Baptized 28th August. ((Beith Parish (Ayrshire, Scotland). Old Parish Registers, OPR 581/3, Martha Love birth (1831); New Register House, Edinburgh.))

I learned a lot just from that simple little blurb written in an old parish book. First of all… I thought Martha was Andrew and Agnes‘ second child. Oops. Luckily, I fixed that lickity split while I was already on Scotlands People. Second, there was another Love birth recorded a few records up the page. However, it wasn’t Andrew and Agnes‘ child. So now I can try and see if that was a family connection to Andrew.

There’s only one problem after all this wonderful progress. I used all my viewing credits in one day. Oops! That’s alright, that gives me time to analyze what I’ve recently learned!