Family Name Changes due to Pension Introduction

[Oaks and Acorns]

Towards the end of the 19th century I would be expecting to see an increase in Gaelicised names, given the growth of the Gaelic League etc about this time.

Was Granny perhaps seen as 'English' and Grant 'more Irish'?

The only other example I could find so far has been the absorption of Barnhill into the more common Barnwell. This seems to have happened 1860 -1929 but not as dramatically as the Granny decline.

Dara.

[shanew147]

....expecting to see an increase in Gaelicised names, given the growth of the Gaelic League etc about this time.

Was Granny perhaps seen as 'English' and Grant 'more Irish'?....

That was what I was thinking might be a factor - as in drop the Y it looks 'English' 


Shane

[corisande]

I think you will find that most people look on Grant as Scottish (incorrectly but there you go)

Certainly in the North of Ireland most Grants are Presbyterian and originality came from Scotland, usually during Plantation of Ulster.

My lot were originally Norman from Kilkenny and in the South of Ireland today half of them are Catholic and the other half C of I.

[shanew147]

The other two graphs... to complete that end of things. I thought maybe the marriages or deaths would show a delayed drop that could tie in with the early 1900s changes.. but the both exhibit the big fall off in Granny registrations from the 1870s - with some sort of anomaly around the 1880s - maybe emigration ?


Shane

[corisande]

Thanks for those 2 graphs, Shane

Quite weird how the Grannys disappear. If I had not followed individual families through the censuses, I would have thought that Granny s were dying out and the Grants breeding like rabbits

[Frenchy]

I have found this thread very interesting as my surname French was changed from Franc(e)y/Francis in the 1880s in Co. Tyrone. The last child born to my ancestors James and Bridget was recorded as a Francey in 1882 and their son's marriage in 1890 as French which all ties in with the Second Land Act which began in 1881.

The same appeared to have occurred with another Franc(e)y family at Drumquin (perhaps a brother of my ancestor) but it appears that the change with this family occurred in the late 1860s - familysearch.org shows the birth of a daughter under the surname French in 1869, a year before the First Land Act. Perhaps this was a birth date from a baptism after 1870?

Until now, other possible explanations we had were illiteracy or that they quite liked that the surname was of a noble line in Ireland.


Chris