Names

I have a tendency to get sucked into things pretty easily. Most of the time this happens with books, movies, or TV shows but this time it was genealogy. I have been interested in family history for a while but is seems to come in stages. Because of this interest, I have always wanted to name my children after my ancestors. It has been easy for me to find boys' names that I like but the first four generations of girls' names are a little abnormal so finding ones that I like has been a challenge. My Mom found a way to print up nine generations of a pedigree onto one sheet; it is called a fan chart:

She printed up one for her awhile ago and put it on the kitchen wall. Almost every time I pass it I stop to look at it for a second. The other day I asked my Dad if he had his printed up yet. He had, so I borrowed it and a copy of my Mom's as well so I could sit down and look at them. Well I kind of got sucked in at that point and no longer was it enough to just look at all the cool names. Pretty soon I started writing a list of all the girls' names, a list of all the boys' names, and a list of all the last names. My Mom thinks I am crazy but it was fascinating so I thought that I would share a few of the fun facts with you, my readers, since most of you have the same ancestors as I do.

• The most popular female name was Mary. Between both lines there were 69 women with the first name of Mary! The second most used female name was Elizabeth, which was used 52 times. 
• The top male name was John, which was used 58 times. William came in second, being used 45 times.
• Around 54% of all the names were from the Bible. Wow! I think that says a lot about their priorities.
• My Dad's grandma and grandpa were fourth cousins, making him is own sixth cousin. 
• My great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandma's name was Running Deer. I think that that is the only non-Anglo part of the family.
• Many of the ancestral last names are the same on both sides of the family. Some examples are: Ward, Clark, Lowe, Brooks, Williams, Stoddard, Scott, Lewis, Gray, Harrison, Thompson, and Butler. 
• I must be related to John Wayne because my Dad's line ties into the McClintock line ;) My Mom's line also ties into the Redfords so I am thinking that Robert Redford must be our distant cousin. jk!
• I found two different lines with the last name of Lathrop on the ninth generation. After researching a little more I found that the line does indeed tie into the Reverend John Lathrop line. He is a well known Reformist who lived in England around 1600 who was imprisoned for being at the heart of the Puritan's reform. After two terrible years in prison they let him out on the condition that he move to New England and never return to England. I first learned about him in my Church History class because he was the great great grandfather of Joseph Smith. In my research I found out that there are millions of his descendants alive today. Through this line I am distantly related to Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith, George Albert Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. and Orson Pratt, N. Eldon Tanner, M. Russell Ballard, Quentin L. Cook, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Bush, Sarah Palin, and even Mitt Romney. Who knew!

 It was really fun to look through all the names! And I also now have a list of boys' and girls' names that I like for my future children. Now I just have to hope that my future husband likes them too :)

On a side note, on the family search site I was able to follow on of John Lathrop's lines all the way back to Adam!! Holy Cow! I didn't even know that that was possible at this point. I am just so grateful to all those before me who contributed to recording my family history. Because of their hard work I can sit and sift through hundreds of names at my leisure without having to do any work!