What’s in a name?

One of the most frustrating things about looking for a person in genealogical records is that you find that a least two people from the same area that have the same name.  I am mostly talking about the British Isles, but I find that Germany is just as bad. It seems that they had a small pool of names to choose from, girls are named Mary, Margaret, Sarah, Ann(e) and Bridget. The boys are named George, Peter, John, Hugh Timothy and Thomas in the UK and Johann, Friederick in Germany.

Now I have a Great-Grandmother named Margaret Armstrong that I found was born in Manchester England in 1845 and she had a brother named George Armstrong. I also found that she married my Great-Grandfather Donald Wilkes in Newcastle on Tyne in 1865. Now I found a Margaret and George Armstrong living with a family in Newcastle on the 1861 UK Census, but in reverse order and this Margaret Armstrong is on record of marrying a person from that family. It even says she was born in Manchester so even if a lot of the information seems right it is not her.

Another case is on my wife’s side with her Great-Grandmother Bridget Kerrigan who I know from all the US Census was born in Ireland in the 1820’s. The age of Bridget on most of the US Census calculate her birth date out to be around 1822-23, Now I found both her sons that were also born in Ireland were baptized in Westmeath Ireland with the dates and parents being correct, so I am fairly sure that Bridget and her husband John Kane were from Westmeath Ireland. I bet you guessed that I found more people named Bridget Kerrigan, in fact Westmeath if filled with people named Kerrigan, which happens when you are looking at ancestral homes of your ancestors. Another person that was also looking for Bridget Kerrigan found a record of a Bridget Kerigan being baptized in 1827 in Westmeath and I found a Bridget Kerrigan in court records suing someone in 1834. Which might be right if she was born about 1822 where she would be about 12 years old, but if she was born in 1827 she would have been only 7 and would be more improbable.

Another common frustration is the spelling of names, but I will get into that in another post for I don’t like to make these posts too long. I don’t if anyone reads it or not, but I still like to make as easy as possible.