On Wed, 2007-10-17 at 17:26 -0700, Tony Johnson wrote: > Remember that "Naming Patterns" are a very important part of any research as there was an established Scottish and Irish Pattern on what child would be named after who. > > Tony Yes there have been naming patters in some families and societies, with patronymic naming confusing our genealogical research in the Scandinavian countries and since merry old England 2 millennia ago was settled by Vikings from Scandinavia, they had to confuse later naming patterns. Jonsson and Jonsdotter sure fit our family surname. But were sons and daughters of John whatever John's last name was. In my family, I'm detecting the possibility of simple naming patterns but more often names adopted from famous names, sometimes biblical (like John the root of our surname), sometimes public figures such as leaders, sometimes literally the names of particularly inspiring preachers, sometimes names of favorite relations. One hint that might show a family fitting to a traditional naming pattern would show where the offspring of two or more siblings have the same sequence of boys and girls names. So a naming pattern can be a hint, but shouldn't be required for a family match. When there were more children than grandparents they ran out of simple pattern names. Gerald J.