Family Name Changes due to Pension Introduction

[corisande]

Shane

Thanks for that analysis, it is an interesting way of attacking the question

But what I would like to do is broaden the question from Granny/Grant in Donegal to any other family name changes in other counties.

[Oaks and Acorns]

Following Shane's good example above I did a little analysis based on the LDS site.

Donegal had the highest concentration of the Granny name and Kerry was second most common, conveniently at almost opposite ends of the country.

I took the number of births, by decade, for both counties and compared them as follows.

Year      Donegal                   Kerry
1860/9      38 (63)      16 (27)
1870/9      62      8
1880/9      25      5
1890/9      20      4
1900/9      1      4
1910/9      1      2

The figure in brackets represents a correction for the fact that registration started in 1864.

I think this shows that the name declined country-wide and the decline started long before the introduction of the pension (from memory the legislation was 1904 and implementation 1908).

It would be interesting to analyse the pattern of births for these areas from church records but unfortunately I don't have access to all the data.

Dara.

[corisande]

So do Shane & Dara conclude that the decline in Granny and the emergence of Grant in their place, happened in 2 stages

1) for some reason half the Grannys changed to Grant between 1880 and 1889

2) the other half for whatever reason changed to Grant between 1900 and 1909

3) I make a big jump here - for some reason this was unique to Grannys and is not something that happened on any scale with other surnames in Ireland

[shanew147]

I think the evidence based on Donegal and Kerry birth registrations is that Granny gradually disappeared from the 1880s and vanished in the early 1900s, and that Grant existed before this time. The difficult detail to prove is what percentage converted their surname, as per the 1901/1911 census example(s) you located.

I dont see a significant boost in the Grant birth numbers that I would have thought should appear if 100 or so Granny families converted at the time - although a general decline in Grant numbers due to emigration etc could mask this.

I think a detailed comparison of families on the 1901 vs 1911 census returns would be a worthwhile step.



Shane

[shanew147]

see below for a graph of the figure mentioned earlier... makes it easier to see the trends
(with the 1860s figures compensated).

From this it looks like the decline in the Granny started in the 1870s and was practically complete by 1900... and there is a gradual increase in the Grant numbers at the time..

There does not seem to be any bump in the Grant line in the 1900 to 1910 range, but the data is based on births. Maybe another analysis based on deaths would show a similar pattern, but pushed to the right by an average lifetime ?


Shane

[corisande]

Nice graph, does show it up well.

I suppose it goes back to my original problem

If one isolated family, be it Granny o O'Higgins, or any other surname you can think of changed its name, then you would think it was just one of those things.

But if a hundred families of Granny change their name to Grant, albeit over 30 years, and over an area (in other words it is not just one priest with an agenda!)  then one assumes there is a reason.

If it were "anti-Irish" names then one would think you would find it with other surnames, in other parts of Ireland.

We seem to be able to rule out a sudden change because of the census, or the pension introduction.. So some other reason must have been behind. I even looked to see if there was a "notorious" Granny in Donegal (say a bit like having the name Hitler in Germany) but could not find anything.

There must be an explanation, if this are unique, then why them and why Donegal. If they are not unique who are the others and what moved them.

[kingskerswell]

Hi,
    If you think that the Grannys' dealings with government officials over pension entitlement might have lead to name changes in the 1900-1909 then similar encounters of those purchasing their land using the Land Purchase Acts of the 1870s and 1880s may account for earlier changes. This may show up in the Griffiths Revision Books where the owner would be shown as holding his land "in fee". Was the name "Granny" when a man rented and then changed to "Grant" after purchase?

Regards

[Oaks and Acorns]

A few observations.

1. The overall increase from ~10 to ~100 seems way in excess of the normal level of population increase in general. I think this is definite evidence of an external factor.

2. On the Grant chart above, I'm seeing a definite change when comparing the pre 1890 to post 1890.

Pre-1890 looks like a step change probably, as suggested on corisande's website, by Granny's converting to Grant. There is evidence of this from the 1901 to 1911 censuses but I suspect this is catching the tail-end of a process that started much earlier.

Post-1890 the numbers appear to have levelled out, with normal levels of population increase taking place.

3. There is a genetic factor involved which leads to a name becoming either more or less common. Because we name our children after the father, a family which tends to produce more male offspring will inevitably become more common than those families which produce more females. To test this, I did a quick check of the number of male and female births in the 1870's. I found 29 male births and 32 female (total 61 means I missed one somewhere along the line). That seems well within the bounds of probability and I don't believe there was a genetic component in the decline of the Granny name.

4. If there was an 'anti-Irish' bias in play I would expect that trend to be seen over other family names. The people who were marrying and having children from 1860-1900 would have been mostly born in or around the time of the famine. Was there a 'distancing' of people in general from their past?


Present thinking, rather than a conclusion, is that the name change took place rapidly over the generation from 1860 to 1890 and slowly after that.

Dara.

[corisande]

To pick up those points

1. "definite evidence of an external factor"
I agree with that

2. "If there was an 'anti-Irish' bias in play I would expect that trend to be seen over other family names."
I agree with that. I do not seem to be able to winkle out any other family names that changed wholesale. That does not mean to say that they do not exist, I only came across the Granny?Grant change with persistence. The people in Donegal had not inkling on their past Granny name. The ones I corresponded with thought they were "real" Grants

3. So do I conclude that there is a different "external factor" at play with the Donegal Grannys, other them moving away from an Irish name. If so any thoughts on what it might be.