Would it be safe to say that prior to the Reformation all Christians were Catholic? And there was a long time between the Norman invasion and the Reformation so a lot of Catholics would have been named William without any reference to religion. Also, there would have been quite an amount of intermarriage between all the invaders and the locals (I was going to say native Irish but when would there have been 'pure' native Irish?) and, therefore, possibly, new Given or Christian names would have been introduced. Catholics would have converted to Protestantism and vice versa so I think trying to assume anything from a given name would be fraught with danger and likely to mislead. On 18/02/2008, crazyangel25@webtv.net <crazyangel25@webtv.net> wrote: > > Along with the Michael's, Patrick's, John's Thomas's and James's I also > have William's and Maurice's and Lawrence's or Laurence. There are at > least 4 Maurice's I have found in my family lines. All Irish Catholics. > > Cris > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > IRL-LIMERICK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >