What's in a Name?

At least for purposes of research, just about every genealogist rues the ancestor whose last name is common, and therefore hard to trace, and rejoices in their ancestors with more unusual names. While an unusual surname undeniably can make genealogical research easier, it doesn’t corner the market on interesting and informative origins.  In Western Europe, surnames first came about in Medieval times as civilizations grew larger and it became necessary to distinguish between people.
Sometimes, names were based on occupation: a blacksmith may have been “John le Smith” (John the Smith) which became, over the generations, “Smith,” and a person named Appleby lived by or tended the apple orchard. Celebrity Robin Leach’s ancestor was probably a physician (because in medieval times, physicians used leeches to bleed people). Actor Christopher Reeve’s ancestor, the one to first take the surname, was most likely a sheriff, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s early medieval ancestor probably tended a park.Other surnames were based on location: an Acker, which comes from “acre,” lived near a field, and a Hall lived in or worked in a hall of a Medieval nobleman’s house. And it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what a forebear named Young or Strong or Gray looked like.Higher social status surnames are more rare today — how many Rothschilds (from the German “red shield”) did you go to school with? — and lower status ones fairly common. Lower social status people were also sometimes given unfortunate names by others, such as “Tew” (Welsh for “fat”) or “Dullard,” which means a hard or conceited man.And in many parts of the world surnames derived from men’s names. A person named Robertson is descended from someone who was the “son of Robert,” and a MacDonald is from a Scottish “son of Donald.” Armenian names of this sort generally end in “-ian,” Polish ones in “-ski,” and Irish ones are put together a little differently, starting with the prefix “Fitz-.”In Spanish-speaking parts of the world, people often take both their mother and father’s surnames. And some families still use family or “house” names that are not surnames at all, like the royal Windsors or Plantagenets.Asian surnames have different stories. Most of the approximately 100,000 Japanese surnames in use today only date from 1868 and the Meiji Restoration, when surnames were mandated for the first time. There are just a few hundred common Chinese surnames, and 20 of them (which reflect an entire clan or were adopted by nobles) are shared by half the population. There are about 250 Korean surnames, three of them comprising almost half the Korean population, and just about 100 Vietnamese ones, with three making up 60 percent of all names in that country.More than 2,600 members at the UK-based Guild of One-Name Studies devote their genealogical research to about 8,400 “one-name studies,” meaning they study everything known about a particular surname, whether the people they research are related biologically or linked to other family trees they are studying. Focusing in on a family surname can be a useful way to break through a genealogical brick wall, and most guild members are easy to reach and willing to share information (generally they ask, in return, for you to share your data on a name).
My own ancestry is a mix of very common surnames (Green, Clark), slightly less common (Argent, Pike, Hart, Mulholland) and some more unusual ones (Pummeroy, Beseler, Farckens, McGoverin).  Each presents their own challenges.
Thanks to Ancestry for their blog entry on surnames.

52 Weeks of Genealogy - Week 17 - Court Records

Shauna has chosen Court Records for her topic for week 17.  She tells us that there are all kinds of courts from higher courts such as the Supreme and District Courts to the local courts of petty sessions plus there are licensing courts, mining warden’s courts, traffic courts, police courts. The terminology and court names vary over time and within the various Australian colonies/states and territories.
Court records in general are not indexed although there may be individual indexes within each register. The easiest way to find out if an ancestor did make a court appearance is finding a reference in newspapers via Trove. This will give a date and place which can then be followed up at the State Archives which is where court records end up for research purposes.
Using Trove, I have come across several court reports in newspapers which have mentioned my ancestors, all of which provide a fascinating insight into their lives.  The article on the left relates to a workers compensation application made by an employee of my ancestor Henry Mulholland after the poor man lost a hand in a farming accident. The amount of compensation for the loss of his hand was disputed, so the case went to court where eventually a sum was agreed upon.


Not all court records necessarily relate to criminal matters.  My Great Grandmother Eliza Pummeroy found herself widowed with 4 children under 5 years old when her husband died of pneumonia.  A month after the death of her husband she made an application for relief to the St Kilda court.  She was receiving 3 shillings a week from the local Ladies Benevolent Society and the court gave her 10 shillings from the poor-box.  Her children were committed to the Department with the recommendation they be handed back to their mother, and she struggled on.  I had already known that both her younger children, boys Alfred and William, were placed in an orphanage for several years and retrieved when she remarried, while she managed to keep the two girls, Alice and Edith (who was deaf and mute) with her.  Finding this article helped show just how desperate she must have been.  The article is dated Saturday 9th March 1901, and youngest son William (my grandfather) was born on the 6th January, so he was only a month old when his father died.

The Savill Index

The State Library of South Australia has recently published on their website the Savill Index of The Advertiser Funeral Notices covering 1971 -1990 and then from 1997 to 2013.
From January 2001 Mr Gerald Savill began extracting and indexing funeral notices that were published in Adelaide’s major daily newspaper The Advertiser. In total he spent more than 300 days at the State Library of South Australia searching newspaper microfilms. The results of his work are now available online on the Library website as the Savill Index of The Advertiser Funeral Notices.  The Index is arranged alphabetically by surname, given name and on occasion given maiden name or nicknames.

Britain From Above

Launched in June 2006, Britain from Above presents the unique Aerofilms collection of aerial photographs, providing access to scans of glass prints and negatives drawn from the collection from 1919-2006. You can register (registration is free) to zoom into these amazing pictures, identify unlocated images, and share memories.  The collection is varied and includes urban, suburban, rural, coastal and industrial scenes, providing important evidence for understanding and managing the built and natural environments.
Over 7,700 new aerial photographs have been made available to view in the past few months, including over 1,500 snaps of Welsh cities such as Cardiff and Swansea.This brings the collection up to over 69,000 images.

Letter to an Unknown Soldier

"On Platform One of Paddington Station in London, there is a statue of an unknown soldier; he’s reading a letter.  On the hundredth anniversary of the declaration of war – in this year crowded with official remembrance and ceremony – we’re inviting everyone to pause, take a moment or two, and write that letter.  All the letters the soldier receives will be published here, creating a new kind of war memorial – one made only of words."
New project 'Letter to an Unknown Soldier', created by Neil Bartlett and Kate Pullinger, is calling for family historians to compose a letter and add it to the website 1418NOW.org.uk/letter. The letter can be inspired by the stories they have researched about family members involved in the First World War. All letters will be published online, alongside those of writers Stephen Fry, Andrew Motion, Sheila Hancock and Malorie Blackman. Letters can be submitted now and will be published starting on 28 June – a hundred years to the day since the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand which marked the beginning of Europe’s descent into war. The website will remain open until the night of 4 August, the centenary of the outbreak of war. The entire collection will be archived online at The British Library and kept in perpetuity for generations to come.

New to Ancestry.com

Launched in April, The West Yorkshire Collection provides details of more than 9,000 boys who were sent to reformatory schools in the county, including the East Moore Community Home School, The Shadwell Children’s Centre and Calder Farm Reformatory.
Fully searchable, the digitised documents note down the boy’s name, age and birthplace, with many also containing photographs, physical descriptions and comments on their behaviour.
Dating from 1856 to 1914, the records hail from a period when the idea of reform was gaining widespread traction. Rather than spending time behind bars, it was felt that reform school was a more appropriate place to send young offenders.
The youth offender records are joined by nearly 400,000 records relating to adult prisoners spanning 1801 to 1914.  Details on each inmate’s age, name, occupation, offence, sentence and dates of admission and discharge are noted, with selected records also containing prisoners’ background information and physical descriptions. In addition to the adult and youth offender records, The West Yorkshire Collection contains more than 32,000 historic police records and 3,000 registers relating to local militia, all of which have been digitised from original documents held at branches of West Yorkshire Archive Service. Explore The West Yorkshire Collection at your local library using Ancestry Library Edition.

WW1 Unit War Diaries

The National Archives has released a third batch of 724 digitised First World War unit war diaries from France and Flanders available online via their First World War 100 portal.
The unit war diaries provide interesting accounts of battles and events, as well as insights into the daily routines of British troops on the Western Front.
What's included
This third release contains the diaries from the Kitchener Divisions and those of the Territorial Force (later The Territorial Army). This includes:

• the 36th (Ulster) Division, which had many casualties on 1 July 1916
• the 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division, which was the last division to leave the UK for France in March 1917

Also included in the diaries are accounts of troops' sports activities (WO 95/2524) which helped keep them motivated and continue fighting until the end of the war.
William Spencer, author and principal military records specialist at The National Archives, said: 'Now that this latest batch of unit war diaries is online, people all around the world can read the official army accounts to discover more about the troops on the Western Front. The diaries note successful battles, such as 46th Division breaking the Hindenburg Line, as well as failures and casualties in key battles such as those on the Somme in 1916. They also provide rare insights into how the troops maintained the environment in the trenches as well as the sports days which helped to keep them motivated.'
Highlights from the files
Highlights from the third batch of unit war diaries include:

• a sports day programme dated 31 October 1917, which notes pillow fighting, wheelbarrow races and wrestling on mules
• sketch of a 'snapshot' view from the front (which notes 'dead animals' and even a 'dead Frenchman')
• two photos giving a 'how to' and 'how not to' guide to laying trench boards 
• three photos of battalion officers from 7th Battalion Black Watch Fife