By David Peel
As many of you know, I’ve become a bit of a history junkie. It probably shouldn’t surprise me because years ago I begin to build out my family tree and have it well up in the thousands now.
But there’s some surprises that I’ve learned while doing Geneology or helping other people learn how to do theirs.
1. Back in the day, when a child, let’s say named William, died, it was not unusual for the next child to be named William as well. This always surprises me —but back then child mortality was so high you had to get child through his fourth or fifth birthday or there wasn’t much chance he would carry the name.
2. The dating pool was shallow if you never traveled more than 20 miles from where you were born. Cousins absolutely did marry one another and in fact, it has never been illegal in the state of Tennessee. In Royal circles was encouraged and repeated over generations, and explains many of the birth defects.
3. When people left Europe to immigrate to this country, they were often not ever heard from again. The family would always be desperate to find out if they perished in a shipwreck, died of some disease, were killed by Native Americans, or were actually were making a home out on the Great Plains.
4. Many times ships left Europe or other locations with a different number of people than what arrived on the our shores. People who died in route were just buried at sea. Ladies gave birth on the way as well.
5. Similarly, wagon trains would leave North Carolina, and arrive in say, Oklahoma, with a significantly different number of people. The wooden crosses that dotted the landscape along the beaten paths told that story.
6. Almost all Caucasian, longtime west Tennessee inhabitants can trace their family back through North Carolina. This is true for a couple reasons: Tennessee was once part of North Carolina itself. Secondly, as people arrived on the eastern Shores, they would begin to move south to look for work or available land, and when they got to North Carolina, most people would move West this way through the Cumberland gap.
7. Last names got misspelled a lot. This happened at musters as people got off ships and spoke with accents to barely literate clerks. This happened frequently in the census, when a semi literate person would be sent out to farms to talk to illiterate people. Examples from my tree include: Peel, Peele, Peelle, Piel, Peal, or Britton, Brighton, Breton, Brieton, Button and Bitton.
8. The most famous name mess up I believe is Mendez. That’s not an actual name as I understand it originally. It was always Menendez. It was spoken so quickly people heard Menendez as Mendez.
9. Remember, we’ve only had last names for about 800 years, unless you descend directly from unusual royalty.
Here’s a tip if you choose to do your genealogy. Do not accept all hints without reviewing them first. Do not accept all trees without carefully checking them.
Double check the dates of birth to make sure that someone hasn’t accidentally placed a daughter as a mother. Remember names are repeated. That advice will save you many hours and a few pots of coffee.
Happy hunting
