Something I learned while doing gene. work was that when you get into your family search you will begin to pick up on a pattern of first and middle names that run in your families. I don't know that that holds true any more in families. There was a family pattern that our ancesters followed and I am not sure if I have it right but the first son was named after the paternal grandfather, first daughter named after the mother or maternal grandmother. It seems like I remember in families that were all female offspring, the paternal grandparents' family name was given to females as middle names. It was one reason some women had such long names sometimes. You can find interesting information on the naming patters. Cyndi somebody has published one book I remember that was really helpful as she discussed naming patters and even handwriting that our ancestors used...But I don't mean to waste your time with this because I have forgotten so much since having a stroke...sorry if I bored anyone or broke the rules of the list. MA Bartlett ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 5:23 PM Subject: Re: [WILLIAMS] Middle Initials |I have had a big problem with middle initials in my searching too, and even | problems when both names were known. Sometimes they are on the census by the | middle name, sometimes by the first, until now I don't really know what was | the first or the middle!!