Valentine

[Chris1969]

I have in my tree a Valentine Walter Wells, which I thought was an unusual name until I got his birth certificate (14th Feb! 1886).

He appears in the 1891 census as Walter V, and in the 1901 as Valentine W. However also in the 1891 he has a brother Valentine S )aged 1, Valentine Stanley going by FreeBMD), who is down as Vincent S in 1901.

Would their parents really have called 2 sons Valentine?

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Cheers


Chris

[suey]

Hi Chris1969 - it's quite possible !  

My husband has a family in his tree with two Marys, one is Mary Ann the other Mary Elizabeth.  There was an earlier plain Mary who died.  Incidentally neither were known by the name Mary while they were alive.  Hubbys family went in for pet names in a big way. For example Nellie was realy Alicia !

Does the name Valentine figure anywhere else in your family, it's possible that the parents wanted to be sure of a continuation of the name.  Also was the second Valentine also born on Feb 14th ?
Suey

Suey

[Chris1969]

Hi

The name Valentine doesn't appear anywhere else in my whole tree.

As the second Valentine's birth was registered in the June quarter I presume that he wasn't born on 14th February.

I've come across other cases of first and middle names being swapped around between censuses.

This particular family came up with names that don't crop up anywhere else, but then I don't have very much info on their mothers family. Maybe thats where the Valentine could have come from

Cheers


Chris