> "Cheryl Freeman" wrote: > > > [...] Mom had never used her middle name and wasn't sure what it was. > > [...] > > At least she knew she had one. > > My firm in England was working on a computer project with an > Italian firm. One of the Italians, after a workshop meeting in the > UK, told his mother of his surprise at meeting a culture in which > it was normal to have two given names. She took the opportunity > to tell him that he himself had a second given name, and what it > was. > > myths@ic24.net (cecilia) What a great story :) When I first started doing research, I puzzled over my inability to find one of my great-grandmothers in any record prior to the census in the year of her death, despite knowing that her given name was Lena. It was only later when I got a copy of her death certificate and saw her name entered as "Mary Maggie Magdaline Young" that I realized that the records I'd found for a young "Mary", "Maggie" and "Lena" were all hers. She had rather more nicknames than I'd expected. Learning about German naming patterns has helped me as I work my way back through her ancestors. "Cheryl Freeman" <cheryl@genattic.com>