The Palatine system of giving all boys Johan as a first name and using Maria or Elisabetha for girls was relatively easy to figure out. These switches are much harder. Another thing they did to toally confuse me is use Jr., Sr., etc. very differently from our system. Jr. was not necessarily the son or Sr.--could be a nephew or something. When Sr. died, Jr. would become Sr. Or as in my craziest middle name ancestor--Richard Crignon Chapel--he usually went by Richard C. or Richard Crignon. One of his sons from his first marriage was named Richard, but doesn't appear to have been called Jr. Richard Crignon adopted the use of Jr., however, after his father died. All this took a lot of time studying deed records to figure out. Fortunatley Richard Crignon bought and sold a lot of land and recorded his deeds so I could eventually get it. I still have no idea, as someone put it, "who or what is a Crignon?" Tom66F@aol.com wrote: Cliff thanks for the information on middle names. My PGF was known as Charles, but on on census is identified as John. According to Albany County records when he married his father is listed as P.P. Have never been able to find a P.P. with a son Charles. Have found a P.P. in Brooklyn 1880s with John for a son. will have to go back and look at that again. *************************************** Have you checked out the Westchester County GenWeb site yet? http://www.rootsweb.com/~nywestch/ *************************************** ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NYWESTCH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message Barbara L. de Mare, Esq. Historian, genealogist and attorney 155 Polifly Road Hackensack, New Jersey 07601 (201) 567-9440 office BarbaradeMare@yahoo.com (home) http://historygenealogyesq.blogspot.com/