8
« on: Monday 07 November 22 22:30 GMT (UK) »
The male names are the usual ones, John, Richard, Thomas, James and William. Richard was a popular name in some of my families from the Fylde region of Lancashire. Female: Alice, Ann, Elizabeth, Ellen, Agnes, Jane, Mary, Catherine, Bridget.
I've mentioned this family before.
My ancestor, John, and Alice, his sister, were children of Richard & Jane & grandchildren of Richard & Jane. John and Alice had a sister, Jane and brothers, Richard, Thomas and William. Alice married a cousin, Richard, son of another John and grandson of a Thomas. Alice & Richard had the same surname. So, Alice had a father, husband and brother with the same forename and surname, although not all at the same time as her brother died young and her father died the year before she married. Alice's husband's brothers were Thomas, William and John. 5 years after Alice's marriage, her brother John also married a cousin, a sister of Richard, his brother-in-law. That meant John had the same name as his father-in-law and a brother-in-law. and his 3 other brothers-in-law had the same names as his own brothers. No prizes for guessing that John & wife named their first 5 sons Richard (x2), Thomas, William and John. The newspaper report of the death of Richard, Alice's husband stated that he was John's brother, which confused me until I realised it meant brother-in-law.
Richard's mother, paternal aunt, daughter, 2 nieces and a sister-in-law were Elizabeth/Betty. Mary was the name of a sister, sister-in-law + 3 nieces. All Elizabeths and Marys had the same surname. 1 Mary and 1 Elizabeth (sisters) changed their forenames by becoming nuns.
All the above people lived in a small town, population around 1,200.