52 Ancestors Week 10: Name's the Same

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 10's theme is "Name's the Same." Is there a name that keeps popping up in your family tree? Have you had to sort out multiple people with the same name?

I wonder if they liked the name "Vincenzo"....

    Last year I wrotr a blog for #52Ancestors on Italian naming conventions and how they worked. Check it out here. Basically, this is the order they go in:

* The first male is named after his paternal grandfather.

* The second male is named after his maternal grandfather.

* The first female is named after her paternal grandmother.

* The second female is named after her maternal grandmother.

    That's simple, right? Well, you'd be happy to know that it is definitely the case for my great-grandfather, Vincenzo and his siblings. I found that out recently thanks to cousins in Switzerland. But, that's not what we're going to talk about this week. Last year, I talked about the same names popping up on my father's side. This year it's my mom's side! Let's begin!

Robert Eugene Hamel

    While names like "Sandra" are very common on my father's side of the tree, my mother's side has a lot of people named "Robert Eugene Hamel" running around. The first, naturally, is my grandfather and everyone called him "Bob". My brother and I called him "Papa" and for whatever reason my other cousins called him "Pépe". Was that a French thing? The only cousin to actually call him "Grandpa" was my youngest first cousin. 

    I digress. Robert's middle name was his grandfather's first name. Eugene Hamel and "Papa" named one of his sons after himself. That would be my uncle Bob. Uncle Bob had a son who we all called "Robbie". These days he just goes by "Rob". Sufficed it to say, the name "Robert Hamel" has been passed down quite a bit over the generations. How do you tell them apart?

    Well, like with any research, you'd need to look at their birth dates, photos and anything else to keep people with the same name in separate generations. But, that isn't to say that you won't have two siblings with the same name. You will. And it will give you a headache! 

  

4 generations. Only THREE Roberts! HAH!

    As you can see by the picture to the right, it's pretty easy to tell who is in what generation. But, if you didn't have pictures, you'd be stuck. You would need birthdays and other records saying who was who. Names get passed down all the time in various families. It happened a lot in the past and is likely going to continue happening until someone breaks the chain. FYI: Robbie's son isn't named Robert! The chain has been broken!

    However, Robert still isn't the most common name that has been passed down in the Hamel clan. No, there are still more common names in the family.

    Eugene had two sons whose names were passed down throughout the generations. Their names were Alfred and Eugene. Alfred was my great-grandfather and he was named after an older brother who died very young. Alfred went on to have a son named Alfred who was kind of a hero. I mean check out his page on WikiTree. He was a firefighter who saved his own family from a fire! He was a soldier during the second World War like his brother and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. That is very awesome. 

 

Eugene Hamel and Celanise Lefebvre

     Meanwhile, Eugene Jr. did okay for himself. He kept the name Eugene going with his son and that's really all I know about the man. That's not entirely true. I do have a picture of him on my tree on Ancestry and I have some idea of where the family lived.

    I have a DNA match with the same name and while he doesn't have a tree, I can sort of figure out where he belongs in the grand scheme of things. You don't want to assume anything in genealogy. However, if the guy's name is the same as your 2nd great-grandfather and he matches your mother, a second cousin and several other people on the Hamel line then it's safe to assume that the guy's a Hamel....especially at over 250 cMs. I don't think I can make it any more obvious! DNA does not lie! If it looks like a duck....

    

    Generations of people with the same name are going to pop up whether you're Italian, French-Canadian, German or whatever ethnicity you might be. People have named their offspring after themselves since the invention of names. Celebrities, of course, take it to the nth degree. The point is, you're going to find those similar names a lot when you are looking at records. It happens whether it's an ancestor named after a sibling who died or if they just want to keep the name going. Differentiating each Robert you find isn't really too hard if you look at the dates they were born, documents and photographs. That should keep you from losing your mind. Now, if it's two half-sisters with the same name living in the same house? That's....another story.

See ya next time!