How Scottish naming traditions can provide clues to researching your ancestry
During the 1700s and 1800s there was a system of naming children which had been called “The Scottish Naming Traditions”. It is a pattern of naming offspring after relatives and went like this;
First son named after the father’s father (Child’s Paternal grandfather)
Second son named after the mother’s father (Child’s Maternal grandfather)
Third son named after his father
Fourth son named after his father’s oldest brother
First daughter named after the mother’s mother (Child’s maternal grandmother)
Second daughter named after the father’s mother (Child’s paternal grandmother)
Third daughter named after her mother
Fourth daughter named after the mother’s oldest sister
If you have noticed that some of your ancestors have followed some kind of naming pattern for their children then it could prove helpful in your research. I have tried to find information about my great great grandmother Ann Livington and whether two Miller lads who were boarding with her and her huisband William Stewart were in some way related. It has been suggested that they may be half-sisters of Ann because her father died in the battle of Waterloo (1815) while she was a baby or just prior to her birth. I found out through my research that one of those lads named one of his children Ann Livingstone Miller.
Using the surnames of relatives as a middle name seem to be more common than you think. My great grandfather Robert who was Ann Livingstone’s son had a habit of this! In fact he often used the first and middle names of some relatives on both the paternal and maternal side of his family. He was not given a middle name at birth as was common in those days (He was born in 1842). He added the Miller name after he landed in Australia to distinguish himself from other Robert Stewarts. This led me to believe that there may be some kind of family tie as far the boarders Ander and Walter Miller who were living with Robert’s parents in 1841.
Among Robert’s children was an Ann Cochrane Stewart, John Cochrane Stewart, James Blair Stewart, and Archibald Arrol Stewart. I have noticed that if you removed the Stewart name there are ancesters named Ann Cochrane, John Cochrane, James Blair, and Archibald Arrol. Robert named his first child William Livingstone Stewart and I was thinking that maybe Ann Livingstone’s father’s name was William.
The Cochranes and the Arrol’s came from Robert’s wife’s side of the family while one of Robert’s sister’s married a Mr. Blair.
All of this information can be useful when putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together in your family tree.
You can get a copy of genealogy which explains in general terms how to go go about tracing your ancestry wherever they come from.
