James Knapp asked: WHY IS THERE SO MANY LADIES WITH THE LETTER E. FOR THEIR MIDDLE NAME.? I suspect that it is either a factor of middle names that begin with E being popular - or perhaps it is that you notice the E better than ther letters? I've built a data base of names from Tombstones in Cazenovia, Fenner, and Nelson (Madison County) and have used it to figure popularity of names through time. I have been working with first names but now that someone has asked, I may break down the field to be able to study middle names also. I have 3306 named females in the data base. Generally Mary is the most popular name throughout the 19th and 20th century, accounting for 11% of all womans first names (382 of 3306). Of these 10% are Mary E., so perhaps James' observation is correct. Womens names beginning with E account for 12% of all women's names, with Elizabeth being the most common at 3% of all names. I always throught that Bestey/Betsy was a common name but found only 44 out of the 3306, which, added to the Elizabeths brings the total of that name up to only 4% of all names. This is on about equal footing with the other most-common names of Ann/Anne/Annie at 4%, Catherine/Kathryn at 4%, and Sarah at 3%. Choice of first and middle names is very much dependant upon how they sound together. Mary goes well with many other names: Mary Adelia, Mary Sophia, Mary Elizabeth, Mary Rose, ... but some name combinations just don't cut it. It seems that in the early 19th century they were pretty good at choosing harmonius name combinations and then from about 1860 on they start picking some really difficult ones: Florence Gertrude, Mary Armenia, Francis Emogene, etc. That is also the time that the traditional biblical names of the earlier generation started to give way to names like Mabel, Elvesta, Agnes, Laverne, etc. and which we today think of names from the depression (as that is when they were older adults). Names are very much a product of their times. I will eventually break my data base down to look at what names where popular at what times, but because so many of the gravestones don't give birth dates, that will be a very difficult task! Dan W. http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyccazen/