Hi all, From: "Pamela J. Sears" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 7:46 AM Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Naming Patterns (Was ASKIN[G]/GARRISON/LUTEN/MARTINEAU/OLIPHANT; etc) > Hi Chris, > >> Pam, Jim, et al, >> >> I'm curious, has Elizabeth Shown Mills published a "study," or at the >> least, her arguments against the existence of naming patterns and/or >> their usefulness when conducting genealogical research? If so, where >> would it be found? >> >> Chris Chester > > > According to on-line sources (such as the results from a Google search), > Elizabeth Shown Mills is the author of 13 books and over 500 articles > that have appeared in magazines and/or journals. > > Jim Brady referred to her opinion ("study") on naming patterns as it > relates to baptismal sponsors, which is addressed here (and also > includes some of her books): > > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/APG/2005-12/1134357258 > >> P.S. >> I suppose I should cite my source for those statistics above <g>. See >> . . .Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Family and Social Patterns of the >> Colonial Louisiana Frontier: A Quantitative Analysis, 1714-1803" >> (Senior Thesis [Honors], University of Alabama, 1981), 202. > > > Beyond that, I do not know of an article or book that is specific to > naming patterns, so you'd have to do some further research, or at least > follow the APG thread cited above. > > A debate between Elizabeth Shown Mills and Patricia Law Hatcher on the > validity of naming patterns was planned at one of the regional ASG > conferences (back in 2008), but was canceled due to scheduling conflicts. > > > Regards, > Pam I am not aware of any "studies" of the naming patterns among the Dutch (or others) in New Netherland (or in The Netherlands). But we've all seen the pattern occur (earliest children named for their grandparents) and have seen its usefulness in genealogy. When it "works" it is great; but I doubt it was _always_ used. My own NN families are such a mix of Dutch, Norwegian, German, Walloon, French and English that I have very, very few from my own work to serve as good examples of a single national group. There have been some studies done on English settlers in Amercia, though. The best I've seen is: "Forenames and the Family in New England: An Exercise in Historical Onomastics" by David Hackett Fischer. This was published in Generations and Change, edited by Robert M. Taylor, Jr., and Ralph J. Crandall (1986); Chapter 12 (pp. 215-241). The study is based on a family-reconstruction project of 1000 families in Concord, MA from the 17th to the 19th C. One of the interesting results is how the naming patterns changed over time. There is a table showing the percent of the time a grandparent's name is passed on (a column for each of the 4 grandparents) vs. year. Unfortunately, it doesn't say if these went to the first possible children or not. Another table shows use of the parents' names. The appearance of middle names was also tracked. There were zero up to 1720. And still less than 10% up to 1780. Then by 1830 75% or more had them. I had never been able to see a pattern to the naming of my English families until I read this. Another study is: "Naming and Kinship in New England: Guilford Patterns and Usage, 1693-1759" by John J. Waters in NEHGR vol. 138 (July 1984), pp. 161-181. Among other things, he discusses 4 different naming patterns observed among 97 families. Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer describes 4 different groups from Great Britain that came to American in colonial times. He describes the different naming patterns used by these 4 groups. As to French and Walloon families, I have never been able to see any pattern at all. Regards, Howard [email protected]