#52 ANCESTORS WEEK 6 - FAVOURITE NAME

#52 ANCESTORS

The prompt for this week’s #52 Ancestor Challenge is Favourite Name. It could be a name of an ancestor that makes you smile. Perhaps it's an unusual name.

MY FAVOURITE NAME - Garvice Galvin 

 
This week I am writing about my father, Garvice Galvin Brandt. Although I adored my father and was spoilt by him as the youngest, I never really talked to him, not on a deeper level! He died when I was twenty one and I suppose I always thought I had plenty of time. 

You would think that this would have taught me a lesson, but alas it didn’t. 

My mother lived for a further 19 years and although I was close to her, I still never gave her the chance to tell her or Dad’s story. I was always too busy with my young family and my parent’s generation had to be asked to share their stories. I just wished I had asked!

It wasn't until later years when I found an interest in Family History that I realised the opportunities missed.

I often wonder how my Dad got his name.

Garvice Galvin BRANDT

Well I can speculate fairly confidently on the Galvin one. His mother’s maiden name was Galvin. Her middle name was Gertrude, so I like to think that there was a GG theme going on when she gave birth.

As to Garvice? It is anyone's guess, but I do have a theory.

My eldest sister thinks she can remember our Mum telling her once that Dad was named after an author of the time. I googled “Garvice authors” once, while researching. I wanted to write a story about his birth. Low and behold there was a Charles Garvice, a popular romance writer of over 150 books at the time of Dad’s birth.

So I now choose to think that this may have been the origin of his first name.

I do know that Garvice, wasn’t popular with my father. He regularly called himself “Jack” and filled many forms in under this name. He also recorded his middle name as Joseph, not Galvin.

So I tend to be fairly liberal in my search parameters when doing research on him.

The other thing is that most research engines and word programmes like to auto correct Garvice to garlic, when inputing information. This has caused a few smiles in my Family History adventures!