"R H Draney" wrote

Sacha filted:

"Don Phillipson" said:

Family trees of the 18th and 19th centuries seem to confirm the
normality of death before maturity. Some of my ancestors applied the
same Christian name to three successive children (because the first
two died in infancy.) The implication is that such families did not
feel they were "missing a child."

I've come across that several times in my family tree. I think one poor
family had three attempts to get a child called John, before
succeeding. It seems - in these cases - either an attempt to carry on
a family name, or perhaps a tribute to the child that had died. In our
own time, a friend of mine considered calling a new son after a
cot-death baby. She didn't.

I've heard that some bereaved parents did this as a folk protection against
the
Grim Reaper taking away the new child; the idea was to confuse the spirits
into
thinking that they had already taken this one....r


In my wife's family tree every first born male is called Joseph, it's a
tradition that all parts of the family kept to it making investigating their
Family Tree "interesting" and has actually stopped me because I can't find
out which was which of the two born in 1826 in the same area!! Certainly,
consistently, when the first Joseph died the next boy was named Joseph and
I've even found a Birth Certificate that has a separate box which states "
name changed after registration" which I had never heard of before.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK