Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Tombstone Tuesday: What's In A Name



My mother's mother, who's gravestone is shown here, is a classic example of why we have problems with names when researching our family histories. The stone has Pauline T. Smith, Sept 22 1886, Feb 5 1965. When she was born her parents named her Paralee Tennessee Lancaster. Her first husband, my mother's father, was named Orand. Her second husband, who is buried near her with his first wife, was named Bex. She divorced the first and outlived both of them. Her third husband was named Smith. Somewhere along the way (I never found anyone who knew when) she changed from Paralee to Pauline, but not until after she passed on the Paralee name to two of her children.

3 comments:

  1. They wanted to make sure we did not get bored looking for them methinks!

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  2. That's a good one! I am going to use that in my presentation on Saturday. Great example!

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  3. Actually that's only part of the name story for that family. I will post more later. As a teaser I can tell you one of my uncles was named Kueffel Esser Orand.

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