Saturday 14 April 2018

#52 ANCESTOR WEEK 15 - TAXES



Our prompt for this week’s Ancestor Challenge is Taxes.

It'sTax season in the U.S. There are many ways you could approach this theme: An ancestor you discovered using tax records, an ancestor who was a tax collector, or maybe an ancestor who kept running from the tax collector! You could explore an ancestor who has been taxing to research.

A taxing problem!


In my Family History research over the years (only about 8 years) I have found it very taxing at times at the lack of imagination that my ancestors used in naming their offspring.

Really! I wish someone had handed some of them a “Name Your Baby” book.

I am sure most of us long suffering Family Historian descendants would agree. There are just so many Thomas, John, Peter, Elizabeth, Mary and Fanny that one can handle in doing a search. 


I have the privilege of a few Thomas Rowleys. Father, son and grandson to name a few. 

Then I have the Elizabeth Rowley? Yes a few of them too. But fortunately they were also shortened to Eliza. The trend kept going here as well over a few generations.

I have a Henry Sparrow Briggs, thankfully the Sparrow is somewhat unique until you start searching and it is amazing how many Sparrows you will find! Close to 200,000 on an Ancestry search alone! Who names their child Sparrow?

Henry carried on the tradition of naming his son after himself, but at least he changed the middle name. But now I have a Henry Rowley Briggs to confuse search engines. There are also quite a few ancestors with the second name of Rowley.

Then we have a Nellie Rowley Briggs. In fact I have two, one an aunt and the other her niece. The original Nellie must have been a favourite sister of her brother Oswald(who by the way also named a son Oswald). This Nellie was a twin and her sister Lillie’s second name was Kingston, which was after her grandparents property. There are a couple of ancestors with Kingston as their second name too.

In this same branch of Briggs offspring there is my grandfather Samuel Stanley who married a Florence. He also had a sister Florence. Not helpful when you are searching Marriage / Death records for Florence Briggs and one of them was a spinster!

I have a Frederick Henderson Briggs and a Frederick Perigo Briggs. You guessed it Henderson and Perigo were former surnames.

I have an Alfred Louis Brandt and his son Alfred Lewis. At least they are a bit different.

Have I made my point? I think so.

Yes, names tax me on a daily basis. How about you?

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