My friends - I am going to close out this week's postings with another in the Skills Puzzler series. I usually try to do one of these every two weeks, and I realize that it has only been a week since our last one, but a couple of messages that came across my screen over this week has caused me to decide to post another Puzzler today. Every one of us study the names given to our ancestors and collateral lines. Sometimes just finding a middle name itself, for example, may require years, as it did in the case of one of my own lines. I spent 21 years trying to find the middle name of one of my ancestors, and, ironically enough, he "told" it to me himself in the end. Names - and very often middle names - can be surnames of grandparents, or given names of grandparents or other relatives. While the old genealogical axiom about the eldest child having always been named for one grandparent or the other and the next one for the other grandparent, etc., is false, it is nevertheless true that there was some degree of what I call "pattern name giving", especially in the 19th century. If we are careful with our analysis and study the backgrounds and the environments in which our 19th century families lived, these names can be vital clues for us. Our Puzzler today deals with the JP family of Curd, which is one of my own lines. Many of you are aware that Edmund Curd, born 1772, was the first Land Commissioner for the Kentucky Jackson Purchase when the Land Office was in Wadesboro. Edmund died in 1846 in Calloway County. He was married twice - first to Mildred Hereford in Shelby Co., KY in 1800 and later to Mary(Polly)Grizzard, in 1817. He and Mary came to Calloway County in 1824. Edmund had a number of children by his first wife, including Charles Curd, who gave the land on which Murray was built. We want to focus on the children which Edmund had by his second wife, Mary Grizzard. Among them were William Hardy Curd, Joel Hawes Curd, Elizabeth Curd, who married a Hollingsworth, and Edmund Grizzard Curd. There has been a mystery about the parentage of Edmund Curd for over 80 years. Indeed, in spite of the efforts of many people, we still cannot locate his parents. Naturally, we look at names for clues. For example, William Hardy Curd - "Hardy" was the given name of William's maternal grandfather, Hardy Grizzard - that fits nicely. But William? We do not know. Edmund Grizzard Curd is pretty clearly a situation in which the son was named for his father and maiden name of his mother. But what about Joel Hawes Curd? Where does that name fit? We know that the Curd family was very much involved in the civic and religious activities in early Calloway County. Edmund was a well known surveyor and was well educated and fairly well-to-do financially. His son, William Hardy, was the first "secretary" of the First Christian Church in Murray, and Joel Hawes Curd and his family were, of course, members there. The question before the house in this Puzzler is this: what can we gather from that name Joel Hawes Curd? Can we see any clues in it? Those who had searched the Curd clan before I came along had found that Mary Grizzard Curd had a brother named Joel. So that part seemed clear - his first name came from his uncle, Joel Grizzard. That leaves us with Hawes. The earlier researchers had pointed to the fact that the "other" group of Curds in Calloway County(for there were two groups, related no doubt, but how is yet to be proven) had two men with that same middle name: Edmund Hawes Curd and Samuel Hawes Curd. Therefore, the appearance of that name Hawes among Edmund's(the Land Commissioner)sons is clearly an indication of a close relationship with that other group of Curds in Calloway County. Do you think that the above conclusions about the name "Joel Hawes Curd" is a reasonable hypothesis about the origin of the name itself? If not, why not, and how would we arrive at some other hypothesis, if the one above is not reasonable? If you want to express your thoughts on this one, you can do so either to the List or to me privately. I will return over the weekend at some point with the solution and analysis. As always, there will be no data posts per se over the weekend, but i expect to drop by with another in our continuing series of JP Land Grants text files, and I will have a special file available this week, which will be of particular interest to those with Gardner forebears in the JP region. -B ===========================================================