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I Have Been Talking with the Trees

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Francis Otto Eggleston, my great-grandfather, lived from about 1915 to 1941 on Glen Road in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, a small suburb of New York with leafy green streets that wind down to the lake of the town’s name.

I grew up far from there, in coastal Southern California, but I’ve seen the house on several occasions, on visits back to visit relatives and friends still in the area.

Eggleston home, Woodcliff Lake, NJ, c.1915.rThe family that lived in that house consisted of my grandparents, Pearl and Robert Berryman, their two twin boys, Tad and Ted, who would be my uncle and father, and my great-grandparents, Clara and Francis Eggleston.

It was a large and stately home with gabled windows and broad eves. There was a curving drive leading to the house in front, and in the back were roses and lilacs, and just beyond, a brook. And of course, there were the trees. Native chestnut, sugar maple, hickory, cedar, and birch shaded the house, and their leaves carpeted the ground down to the creek.

As a child, my father, along with his twin and their younger cousin rigged a “flying boat” with pulleys to swoosh them down and into the creek. It was a massive operation for three boys, but with rope and pulley suspended and secured between two of those deep-rooted hardwood trees, their airborne adventures were ensured.

The children’s parents and grandparents didn’t pay much attention. A few cuts and scrapes, maybe a banged up forehead, were nothing to worry about in a ten or 12-year old boy.

Inside the house my grandmother would be planning one of her frequent parties of artists and political commentators. My great grandfather would be in his study, writing. My grandfather would be at his job in a bank on Wall Street. I’m not sure what Great Grandmother Eggleston would be doing. She was a homemaker all her life, not given to fun in the typical sense, but to quiet serenity.

The house and the trees still stand. The flying boat is long gone, as are my grandparents and great grandparents, my father, his twin, and their cousin.

The following poem or meditation was written by Great Grandfather Eggleston, probably when he was in his 70s or 80s and living in this house. Maybe during the day I just described.

I’m afraid it is page two, and I do not have page one. But it is worthwhile reading nonetheless.

Francis Eggleston often signed his poems and articles with simply, F.O.E., including the newspaper column he wrote for the Bergen Record, in Woodcliff Lake, from 1929 through 1941.

A transcription is below the photo.

FOE Eggleston 'I have been talking with the trees'

I have been talking with the trees

That grow outside my window.

These are my nearest neighbors –

Almost my dearest – they please

Me in so many ways and never vex my spirit.

These stately oaks are titled old grandees

Of noble birth and ancient lineage.

They gathered wisdom through long centuries

And stored it in their steadfast hearts.

Sometimes, I think I love the graceful birches best,

They seem more feminine and full of friendly gossip.

The Tulip poplar stretches friendly hands to me.

Almost to greet me at my casement.

Near to a noble oak a Whitewood stands

So straight of bole and loftily unbent

Of winds, it wears its leafy crown above the best

Of all competitors.

Such company is better sought than that of men

Whose purblind groping after phantasies

Goes on to vast bewilderment, then back again

To seek a new sensation.

How steadfast; these stand in meditation deep –

They sleep within the calm of their own shade

In cultured quietude – as those who have attained –

Who have no restless need to fume and weep

The aimless tears of human souls —

The souls of trees are surely wise and blest.

F.O.E.

Onath? Mathe? Enath? What Is That Word?

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I’ve been reading my great-grandfather’s autobiography. It is written by hand with a fountain pen, with flat, steel-grey ink in narrow rows, making each page dense with words.

His handwriting is legible, his letters open and wide, but now and then there are words I cannot make out. A few moments ago I came across one of those, and it took a bit of “detectiving” to figure out what word it was.

In the section I was reading he is writing about growing up on a farm in the 1860s, what he calls “the tool age,” meaning that there was very little mechanization, few machines to lessen the labor. He acknowledges that some did exist, but that his father was “conservative in his methods,” meaning he liked the old fashioned ways.

Describing their farm implements, he wrote, “When I first knew life as a farmer boy there were no mowing machines. Grass was cut with sythes [scythes] – blades 2 1/2 feet long, curved and fastened to a crooked….”

FOE Eggleston snath“…a crooked…”… what? Mathe? Emathe? Ouattie?

At least I knew he was talking about a scythe, which is a long, narrow, curved blade attached to a long handle, used to cut grass or hay. But his didn’t appear to be fastened to a handle, it was fastened to a…mattie?…enathe?…onattie?

FOE Eggleston 'snath' excerpt

So I Googled the words scythe, blades, curved, fastened, and crooked, and voila!

There it was, in the third search result, a book published in 1921 called Maintenance of Way Cyclopedia, in conjunction with the American Railway Engineering Association, Snath pageand having the catchy subtitle, Definitions, Descriptions, Illustrations and Methods of Use of the Materials, Equipment and Devices Employed in the Maintenance of the Tracks, Bridges, Buildings, Water Stations, Signals and Other Fixed Properties of Railways.”

Right there on page 144, in the Track section, there were drawings of a scythe’s parts, including handle, here called a snath.

That was it – snath.

I’ve copied the page, at right, and highlighted where the word “snath” appears.

Armed with this new word, I Googled “snath,” curious what Google could tell me about it.

But so unfamiliar with the term was Google, that it asked if I meant, “snatch.”

“No,” I replied, I mean “snath,” a long crooked handle.

And that’s when I found out that the only use of the word “snath” is in conjunction with the word, “scythe.”

Winslow Homer man with scythe

If a snath is attached to anything but a scythe, it is not a snath, but a handle.

That’s also when I discovered that there is a scythe revolution afoot.

I was told this by a website called, The One Scythe Revolution.

They even have a page on snaths, including some very handsome Swiss wooden jobs, and an instructional video.

Song_of_the_Lark_Winslow_Homer_1876

But in case you don’t trust One Scythe Revolution that there really is a scythe revolution, you can visit Scythe Connection, which tells you “what sets us apart from the rest of the scythe-promoting crowd.”

Then there’s Scythe Supply, which has a fetching illustration of a scythe, with callouts as to its various parts.

And of course, Amazon.com, which sells aluminum, steel-clad, and wood snaths.

Frank Blackwell Mayer (American painter, 1827-1899) The Invasion 1867Great-grandfather Eggleston didn’t seem impressed with himself for knowing the word, “snath,” and he practically mourns that he was made to use one.

But you’ll surely impress your friends with the word snath, if ever you happen to be talking scythes.

Otherwise, it’s just a handle.

 

Francis Otto Eggleston, “A Poetic and Romantic Boy”

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F.O.E. CHAPTER 1: I never met my great-grandfather, Francis Otto Eggleston, a distinguished-looking gentleman with enormous, liquid eyes who, even at 89, stood as straight as the ladder-back chair of his that I inherited.Francis_Otto_Eggleston_c.1983.r

His nose was prominent, but matched the proportion of his eyes and mouth, and was balanced by noticeably high cheekbones.

I do not see any similarities between us, though I feel them mightily.

As a toddler he was “a chubby little chap in a pinkish dress, with a belt,” and as a young boy wore boots, “with red tops and copper toes.” Which may explain his penchant for always dressing well.

When grown he wore a white shirt and tie nearly every day of his life, usually with a suit, often three-piece, or at least with jacket.

Francis O. Eggleston c.1939As a young man, he sported mutton-chop sideburns so large that they nearly met and merged on his chin, just above a ribbon bow tie and well-starched high-collar shirt.

His hair must have been wavy, because in photos it is barely tamed across his forehead and combed as well as he could back from his ears.

By old age he had let his cotton-white hair grow longish, and swept it back from his forehead, where it fell to either side in a distinguished mane.

The family called him Grandfather, a testament to his dignity, and the formality of their time and place in history.

As for his character, Grandfather was gentle, a romantic and a dreamer.

How do I know?

Because he left his letters, poetry, lectures, and other writings, including a twenty to thirty thousand word biography, to my mother, his beloved granddaughter-in-law, and so I know him as well as his words can express. FO Eggleston scrapbook letter to Ruth Berryman

“I know that I was a poetic and romantic boy with a good bit of natural piety but little religion of the standard type. I have the same peculiarity after 80 years,” he wrote in his biography.

Fortunately, Grandfather’s was not a family that discouraged dreaming or education, and both he and his brother, DeWitt, were given ample room for study, including being sent to the best schools available.

When he was a child, Cleveland, 25 miles distant from the Eggleston farm, was no more than “a largish village,” as he described.

His mother died young of typhoid fever, as did his sister, Mary. I wrote about the epidemic that befell their home previously, here. Such tragedy was, unfortunately, not uncommon.

Francis was expected to perform the duties of a typical 1860s farm boy, helping around the farmyard, in the fields, and with the livestock, and he did so, but not with enthusiasm. “I was not by size or weight a country man, as my own weight was only about 120 pounds.”

His lack of enthusiasm caused others to think him lazy, but “the true fact was that I was always averse to farm drudgery and dirt. I was mechanical, and always had something to make or repair – lazy I was not.”

Still, he found other aspects of farm life idyllic.

“My brother and I were beauty-haunted, and lived in our own world until he went away to school in his early adolescence.”Ohio woods

There was a woods behind the farm’s barn, and Francis considered it the loveliest part of their large property.

Just seeing photos from that area of the country, I can see why he loved those woods. I’m from Southern California, where a mention of “woods” brings to mind golf clubs, and anything that’s “woody” might be just an old surf jalopy.

Grandfather’s woods were untouched by saw or road. The trees were so healthy that they practically fluoresced green in springtime, their shoots of bright new leaves tittering in the slightest breeze like tiny dancing elves.

American beech treeThere were no chestnut trees, but they had hickory trees so big around that a full-grown man could not wrap his arms around them.

And beech trees that towered to 80 or 100 feet, their root base emerging from the ground as if the tree was being ripped from the dirt in its need to grow higher still.

In fall the canopy opened and light dappled the still-crimson and gold leaf carpet below to give a hint of warmth to a wanderer.

And in winter, snow hid any path but crunched underfoot, ensuring a dreamer could find his way back as long as he was mindful of weather.

The dreamer and poet in Grandfather emerged early. Every moment he could steal away, he read and memorized poetry.

FOE Eggleston 'I have been talking with the trees'The biography he wrote in later years overflows with references to classic writers and quotes from poems both famous and obscure.

I imagine him retreating to those woods with his books, especially Emerson, to whom he was ever devoted.

Francis and DeWitt enjoyed getting out of the farmyard, where Grandfather could indulge his poetic side.

His biography notes that they, “acted the part of shepherds in spring, and in season there were raspberries to pick, and blackberries. Then there were apples to gather, and pears and cider apples – plus cider.”

Grandfather felt he didn’t fit on the farm. Yet he learned duty and discipline, tempering his “poetic and romantic” soul.

His was the best of worlds. His mind wandered free, yet he was not a free spirit. This is a description you’ll see me use often for Grandfather.

In his biography, he quoted John Greenleaf Whittier:

Life made by duty epical
and rhythmic with the truth.

Beauty and wisdom where his loftiest goals. Duty and service were his calling.

This will become clear in the rest of Francis Eggleston’s story, which you can find in Chapter 2, here.

What Do We “Really” Discover in Our Ancestors?

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Why do we do it?

Why do we spend our time digging into the past, an exercise that is sure not to change the world in any meaningful way?

Journal Page, Francis Otto EgglestonWhy do we spend hours on end combing through dusty stacks or tussling with software that won’t bend to our will?

I know my answer. It’s simple. Because someone has to do it.

It’s because I have all of my birth family’s photos and memorabilia, and my siblings have hounded me for years to make copies for them, so I’m finally getting around to it.

But that’s not the real answer, is it? We both know it.

There’s a reason I’m the one who ended up with all the photos, after all. Because I have always been the one who has her nose stuck in old journals of my great-great grandfather or who sits picking through dog-earred photos of my un-labeled ancestral strangers that someone shoved in a box and forgot about long ago.

I go after my ancestors with bloodhound-like dedication.

It’s a way of grounding myself, of adding to my understanding of who I am. I want connection, I seek connection to the past “me’s.”

Peg Berryman autobio pg 1Because as much as I am an individual, I am also an amalgamation of all those who came before me.

That’s heredity. The simple idea that some of my traits – and maybe some of my most important traits – come from my birth family.

And so where did they come from?

A family line may pass down so much more than DNA-dependent traits.

A family passes down its way of looking at and living in the world. And if you’ve ever wondered why you do something a certain way, maybe it’s because of your great-great-grandfather.

At family get togethers my grandfather, always political and with a wry sense of humor, used to get the kids around him, and lead us in singing, “Vote the Democratic party in November, if you want to go to heaven when you die.” It still makes me laugh!

Through genealogical research I know now that he was raised by a staunch Democrat, who was in turn raised by another staunch Democrat.

There is a book I found called History of Allen County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published in 1906.

FOE sermonIn it I found a sketch about my great-grandfather saying, “Like his father, he is a Democrat, and has served as school director, justice of the peace, trustee, assessor and supervisor.”

Now I know that I come from at least four generations of staunch Democrats, and if I look hard enough maybe I can trace the propensity back further.

Family “traits” can take strange turns, too.

I heard a story one time about a family whose tradition it was to cut the Christmas ham in half before cooking it. That’s the way it was done and no one questioned why.

But a young member of the of the family asked. Her mother didn’t know, nor did her aunts, who all cut the ham thus so before baking as well.

So she asked her grandmother, and learned that as a young bride she had a small oven, and needed to cut the ham in two for it to fit.

These are the delightful stories we can uncover when we take interest in our forebears.

But does the information have any use to us? Probably not in proportion to the amount of work it takes to find it.Family Bible Letter to Clara Minerva Brown Eggleston

But that’s just talking in practicalities. It’s not “practical” to want to know more about yourself.

It’s not “practical” to spend your time digging through your past when you “should” be straightening a messy house or putting in a few extra hours at work.

That’s okay. I’m a self-diagnosed progonoplexic.

Progonoplexia is a condition marked by obsession with one’s ancestors.

It was coined to describe the modern Greek people’s preoccupation with their ancient past.

But heck, if those monuments and statues and writers and philosophers were mine, I’d be obsessed too. If one must be obsessed with anything, ancient Greece is one of the healthier choices I can think of.

I’m not sure I can say I’m “obsessed” with my past. But there is a great sense of satisfaction in discovering my forebears. Especially the ones of just two or three generations ago, near enough to have made a big difference in who I am.

F.O. Eggleston Poem in The Unitarian, September 1891.PNGYes, I am a staunch Democrat, like my father and grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great grandfather.

I also have a “tender heart” like my grandmother, or so says my mother.

I have courage, like my great uncle, who after shooting a grizzly bear in Alaska but being injured in the process and unable to make it back to camp, opened and slept inside the bear. (But I’ll go on record as saying I’m not that brave!)

And I am easily frustrated and distracted, like the great-grandfather who up and left his family and never returned. Again, the trait in me is diluted. I’m not that easily frustrated, but I’ve been told I don’t suffer fools.

My husband would say my genealogical pursuit is “internalizing,” which he equates with wheel-spinning. He thinks everyone should be externalizing, thinking and doing in the real world. But there’s room for both, and I do both.

What do we really discover in our ancestors? Ourselves. I know more about myself today than I did before starting my genealogical quest. And that has to be a good thing, right?

Right!

The Puzzling “White Indians” Who Loved Their Abductors.

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Yesterday I wrote about the five Boyd children who were brutally captured by Iroquois warriors in 1756.The White

If that sounds terrifying, it probably was. At least it started out that way.

The Boyd children were taken by force, their mother and youngest brother killed because they couldn’t keep up.

The children were with their captors for seven years. Then the frontier wars were settled. Treaties were signed stipulating that all captives be returned. Colonial troops went into the wilderness to rescue them, returning with hundreds at a time.

But several of the Boyd children fought against returning home.

When they were forced under guard to reunite with their European-American families, these children managed to escape, and returned to the communities of their captors.

My blog post yesterday was a story of events, not explanations. Captured by Indians

Now I’m wondering about the explanations.

Why did not just these children, but so many others, and adult women and occasionally men as well, choose to stay with their Native captors?

Was it Stockholm Syndrome, wherein a captive irrationally identifies with her captor and blames her own people for not rescuing her?

Or was it something else, something the European Colonials did not want to even think about, that the Natives actually had the more desirable way of living?

If you’re expecting a definitive answer to that question, I can’t give it. I have only supposition, and some input from far more knowledgeable people than I.

Catheraine Carey LoganCaptive-taking by Native Americans was surprisingly common in Colonial times.

It was also common for captives to choose their Native communities over their Colonial families.

This puzzled the European Americans to no end.

They came to America believing that conversion would be easy once Natives saw the superiority of the Europeans’ religion, clothing, agriculture, dwellings, and every comfort known so far to man.

Yet there were very few Indians who converted to English culture, while large numbers of English chose to become Indian. Even Benjamin Franklin pondered why:

“When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and makes one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return. [But] when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.”

One author put a bottom line on it in 1782, writing that,

“thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans!”

Those are not the popular writers of their time, the serial novelists aCaptive Womennd journalists who sensationalized stories of captor brutality that today’s academics call “capture narratives.”

These narratives were the thrillers of their time, and the public ate them up.

I have no doubt of much of their truth, aside from the sensationalism. A few were written as eye-witness captive accounts, after all.

Yet James Axtell, historian at Sarah Lawrence College, writes in the William and Mary Quarterly that the Natives treated their captives as equals nearly from the beginning of their captivity.

He notes that though food on the trail was scarce, it was shared equally with the captives. The children were given soft moccasins for running, lessons in survival, snow shoes for easier travel.

White captivesOnce in the villages, the captives were given Indian clothes, taught Indian songs and dances, and welcomed as family members into specifically appointed adoptive families.

It wasn’t necessarily easy. There were often rituals and trials that had to be passed, such as a gauntlet to beat the whiteness out of them, and afterwards, a second ritual to wash it out.

But once these trials were passed, captives were awarded full integration into the tribe.

Compared to the stern and rigorous life of a New England Puritan, or the hardscrabble life of a pioneer farmer, this life might have seemed more compassionate and civilized. The English were new here, still trying to tame the wilderness, bring it to its knees before the saw and the plow, to furrow its land and regiment its growth, much as it did its children.

I can see where life would definitely be more difficult for a European-American child of that time.

Most of the thousands of “white Indians” left no explanation as to why they chose their adopted Native families and culture over the Colonials. They just traded in their hard shoes and disappeared into the wilderness.

The only narratives we have are from those who chose to return to Colonial society. In those writings, it is clear that the “white Indians” valued what Axtell calls the Natives’

“strong sense of community, abundant love, and uncommon integrity – values that the English colonists also honored, if less successfully.”

Mary JemisonAxtell also notes other values, such as:

“social equality, mobility, adventure, and, as two adult converts acknowledged, ‘the most perfect freedom, the ease of living, [and] the absence of those cares and corroding solicitudes which so often prevail with us.”

As I said, I’m no expert. I’ve read only a few academic papers, not even enough to make me dangerous.

But if what these academic researchers say is true – and I have no reason to doubt them – isn’t it a shame that the imposition of culture was so one-way? Isn’t it a tragedy that the annihilation so complete?

We lost a whole culture. But what did we also lose in not heeding the lessons of our own children who chose to have different families?

“Mules are Always Boasting that their Ancestors are Horses.”

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“Mules are always boasting that their ancestors are horses.”

I read that somewhere and busted out laughing. It’s true, isn’t it? And mules aren’t the only ones who do it. I do it. You do it. We all do it.

Harris - Napolean's horse

Napoleon’s horse.

And it’s nothing to be sheepish about either. It’s easy to understand why we light up when we find an impressive, well-known ancestor.

At its most basic, it’s because we all like a good story. Life is just a series of interconnected stories. And telling those stories is the basis of communication.

The joke, “Mules are always boasting that their ancestors are horses” is about communication. So I’ll keep my comments to the way we communicate our interest in genealogy to others.

Man O'War

Man o’War, one of the greatest racehorses of all time. In his career he only lost one race.

When we tell people that our ancestor is a “horse” – someone who impresses people, like George Washington or Marie Antoinette or Man O’War (see photo at right), we’ve suddenly got a conversation. We’ve made a connection.

They know just enough about that historical person to be “pre-interested.”

Conversation is about finding topics of common interest, after all, and if you don’t have anything to say except that you’re related to a person who lived a long time ago, the only response you’ll get is the back of your dinner partner’s head as he turns to talk with the person on his other side.

But talking about your “horses” isn’t all about impressing other people. In fact, it’s not even primarily about impressing other people.

Copenhagen, horse of the Duke of Wellington.

Copenhagen, horse of the Duke of Wellington.

My eyes glazeth over after a spell spent double-checking demographics on the umpteenth ancestor in my family tree.

If you’re at all human, you probably feel the same.

We’re like the dinner partner. We don’t want to bore ourselves. Saying you’re related to Sir Isaac Newton (as I’ve been saying since I was a child) is just a shorthand way of telling someone how interesting, how rewarding it is to research your family’s history.

But unlike our fictional dinner partner, we’re just as interested in the no-names as we are the famous ones.

I’m every bit as interested in my ancestor the Reverend John Fitch, who is not well known, as I am in Isaac Newton.

But I can’t expect anyone else to be interested in him…unless I know enough about him to weave an interesting story. I know what gets a reaction – and follow-on questions – and what doesn’t.

Theodore Roosevelt and his horse, Little Texas, who led the charge up San Juan Hill.

Theodore Roosevelt and his horse, Little Texas, who led the charge up San Juan Hill.

In fact, I’m more interested in the good Reverend Fitch, because his story is not well known. I had to work hard to find out that he moved a congregation into the wilderness of Connecticut in the mid-1600s. That he was a friend of Uncas, the chief made famous in “Last of the Mohicans,” and that he helped get Mohicans on the Colonists’ side in King Philip’s War.” That’s a story or few.

We genealogists have to be obsessed, otherwise we won’t find anything more interesting than dates and names.

We are more than kin connectors or clan catalogers, family finders, or pedigree-ophiles.

Silver and Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger saved a wild horse from an enraged buffalo, and in gratitude the horse gives up his freedom to become the Lone Ranger’s faithful steed, Silver.

We are storytellers, and we have to be blood hounds for the details, because therein lies the story.

I’m going to keep looking for the horses in my past. I’ll no doubt find some jackasses* as well, but I bet a few of them will make interesting stories too.

Note: A mule is the offspring of a horse and a donkey, or jackass.

 

Let’s Play Ancestral Name Detective!

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First names, like eye color, tend to run in families.

In my (ex) brother-in-law’s family, every first son is James, every second son is John. It has been like that for generations. He broke the tradition by a hair, naming his first son John. James will have to wait for esteemed son number two.

My sister tossed on our own family naming tradition by adding a middle name for baby John that is old-fashioned and multi-syllabic: Chauncey, which is the name of our great-great grandfather.

Chauncey is also a name that is typical for my family. Given names for us tend to be a mouthful: Theodore. Cynthia. Thaddeus. Justine. Florence. Priscilla. Abigail. Frances.

In all 2,101 ancestors I’ve come up with so far, our most common female name is Mary. There are 112 of them, which still leaves 1,989 who are not named Mary. That makes for a lot of unique names.Baby_Ruth_Cleveland

Of course, each generation seeks its own naming trends,whether we’re talking the 1980s or the 1480s.

Every one of my 16 Abigails are from the 16- and 1700s, except one 1800s.

Sometimes these generational naming trends fight family traditions for naming supremacy.

And so somewhere right now 2014’s trending “Joshua” is bumping a favorite family name off the birth certificate. Just as the name “Ashley” did a few years ago.

And the way “Ruth” spiked from 66th to fifth most popular girl’s name after the birth of the hauntingly beautiful “Baby Ruth,” daughter of President Grover Cleveland, in 1891.

But does every family have names as odd as mine?

Look through my ancestors and you’ll find Aleonore, Amabil, Ansfred, Apollonia, Apollos, Augustine, and Avelina. And Benoni, Beriah, Biggett, Bishop, and Bran. That doesn’t even exhaust odd names from the A’s and B’s!

Sherlock Holmes hatOf course, they probably weren’t odd for the time, and that’s where it helps to put on your best Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat and play Ancestral Name Detective.

You can sometimes guess in what era an ancestor was born, or the circumstances of an ancestor’s birth, just by the their name.

My eighth great grandfather was Benoni Gardiner. That odd name is a clue that his mother might have died in childbirth, which she probably did, as her year of death is also his birth year.

It didn’t take me much Googling to find that Benoni is a name that had special meaning in early New England families. It comes from a passage in Genesis on the death of Rachel, wife of Jacob:

And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin.

Pilgrim kidsIt’s no trick at all to know that my ancestors, Silence Brown, Delight Kent, Mindwell Osborne, Temperance Stewart, and Thankful Clapp were all named in the trendy Puritan practice of choosing virtues as children’s names.

And with a name like Henry de Pomeroy, you can bet my 21st great grandfather lived in 11th or 12th century England, which he did.

But I admit I was thrown by my 18th great grandmother, Ethel May Dyer, who was born in 1320 England, not the early 20th century American Midwest.

You can learn a lot about history, too, when researching ancestral names.

Walter Giffard, my 23th great grandfather, was born in 1040 in Normandy. I figured he must have palled around with William the Conqueror, because next we see him he’s been installed as Earl of Buckingham after William won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and parked his throne in England. Bayeux tapestry.GIF

Sure enough, a little Googling proved my hunch was right. (Don’t be too impressed. The Battle of Hastings in 1066 is one of the few historical dates I remember from school.)

At first ol’ Norman-named Walter was surrounded by people with weird Anglo-Saxon names like Cyneweard, and his friends Godric, Aelfwine, Godgivu , Aethelred, and Deorwine.

William and his Norman crowd brought their refined, wine-drinking names with them, and the not-so-sore-losing conquerees soon discovered that they liked both the culture and the names of the conquorers better.Bayeux tapestry 2.GIF

That’s why your neighbors are probably William instead of Wigberht, John instead of Eoforhild, or Susan instead of Swidhun.

It’s also the reason there are, statistically, 60 Michaels to every Hector, and 57 Johns to every Stuart.

Because the pool of popular children’s names shrank after the Norman invasion.

Instead of the Anglo-Saxon baby name book that would have been hundreds of pages long, parents would have had more of a pamphlet to go through now.

To put it another way, if you went out to meet a group of ten friends in England in about 1300, the group would have, statistically, two Johns, two Matildas, at least one William and Isabella, and either a Thomas, Bartholomew, Cecilia, or Catherine for the others.

Naming became so uncreative in England, in fact, that there were sometimes several children with the same names in one family.

800px-Family_Saying_Grace_Anthonius_Claeissins_c_1585Like a family noted in the History of Parish Registers, which reads:

“One John Barker had three sons named John Barker, and two daughters named Margaret Barker.”

I just hope they didn’t all look alike too.

It got confusing real fast. Thus the surname became a thing.

For a while, last names kept to the knitting. If you read King Edward IV’s accounting books from 1480, you would see IOUs made out to:

John Poyntmaker, for pointing of xl. Dozen points of silk pointed with agelettes of laton.

To a laborer called Rychard Gardyner working in the gardyne.

To Alice Shapster for making and washing xxiiii. Sherts, and xxiiii. Stomachers.

But they started running into a problem of duplicates, so someone got smart and extended the roster of names by adding “son” (in whatever appropriate language) to the ends of given names.

PeacockThen someone else started in on adjectives, like Short, Little, Red, or White.

Then they started putting their creative muscle into it and got Longfellow, Blackbeard, Stern, and Peacock (“vanity, vanity, all is vanity”).

You probably don’t know anyone named “Crooked Nose,” but maybe you know a Cameron, which is Gaelic for the same.

And you probably don’t know an “Ugly Head,” but I bet you know its Gaelic version, Kennedy.

You probably do know what the name Williamson means. But I bet you didn’t know that William is German for Desire Helmet.

It’s fun to play ancestral name detective, though it can be frustrating. But if you’re hitting brick walls that you need to find a way around, put on your deerstalker hat and think like Sherlock. You might be surprised at how well it works.