>>>One of the reasons that folks waited to name their babies was the >>high mortality rate with infants. Remember it wasn't until WW2 that we got >>Penicillin. >> Janice M. Healy > >Not some of my Irish relatives. They used the same name on 3 babies until >it stuck. They even paid to have a tombstone erected in Bangor Ireland for >a memorial to their dead James Kelly sons. Yes the English were that way in my mothers family, sure can make for confusion can't it. It was my dad's Swiss/German families that would not name the babies until they thought they had a chance to survive. Dad's mother was very superstitious and she said it was bad luck to name the baby before it was two. So there were several reasons. I think that none of us will know all the why's and were fores about this one, I have a feeling, but the death rate of infants played the biggest part of the equation I think. Janice M. Healy Co-compiler of "Oregon Burial Site Guide" Aloha, Oregon U.S.A. Mailto:[email protected] "Oregon Burial Site Guide" http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/obsg.html Plan ahead for the FGS Conference in Salt Lake City Sept 7 thru 10 2005 Public service site http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ancestors.html