It is nothing new for parents to choose names for their children that reflect their views or religious beliefs, or are in honour of a historical figure or current celebrity. Many a child was recorded in parish registers with the forenames ‘Lord Nelson’ after 1812. The names our ancestors choose can give insight into their lives. One such is a puritan father christening his four sons, with lowering expectations, Live-well, Do-well, Die-well and Fare-well. A set of twins had much to live up to being christened Peter the Great Wright and William the Conqueror Wright. However for family historians an unusual name can be a blessing with genealogical research. There was no difficulty in identifying the correct Temperance Sober Lane in census records. The same could not be said for her cousin John Smith. These kinds of names were often not popular when children reached adulthood. For example, John Robinson Crusoe Heaton opted to live his adult life as the more prosaic Evan James, little guessing knowing the difficulties he would present for family history research a century later. Contact us
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