This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: adrian_bruce Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.britisles.scotland.ans.general/5996.3.2.2.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: "If John followed protocol, he would name his first born male after his father..." Oh no, Patrick - don't allow yourself to be sucked into the Scots naming pattern nonsense. I'm 1/8th Scots (one G-grandfather from Dundee) and _if_ that's a representative percentage, of the 751 families in my database, 93 would be Scots. Well, I've seen just two of those families follow an (alleged) Scots naming pattern. One was a family into which my relative married, so the pattern was before they arrived. The other came from California - the maternal grandfather was Scots, but they got the order of the first two daughters wrong. So call it one-and-a-half families. Now, on the Gaelic side of Scotland, life might be totally different, but on the East Coast..... No. It is not protocol. It doesn't mean your family _didn't_ follow the pattern. It unquestionably exists in _some_ areas and eras, but the fact is that you should use ancestry to deduce a naming pattern, not a naming pattern to deduce ancestry. If you are alert to this, then fine... Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.