52 Ancestors Week 31: Favorite Name

 From Amy Johnson Crow: People sometime ridicule celebrities for the "unusual" names they choose for their children. Clearly, they haven't looked at some ancestral names, like "Strange Powers" or "Preserved Fish." Who's name in your family tree makes you smile? (Of course, feel free to interpret this theme however you'd like!)

Zebulon Caterina. If only I had the space for a third name....

    What's in a name? Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? Probably. It would still be one of the most shockingly expensive flowers on the planet. Over the course of my genealogical adventure I've definitely come across some names which are probably my favorites out of the whole tree. I have picked four names to talk about from each corner of my family tree so as to not play favorites with my favorites. Does that sentence even make sense? Let's get started. These are just four of my favorite names that either make me laugh or are just REALLY common. 

1. Zebulon Drew

    When I first came across the name "Zebulon Drew" after correcting a Smith line, the first thing that came to my mind was that he sounded like he was the lead singer of a Nordic death metal band from the 1980s. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Zebulon wasn't Nordic and probably did not have big '80s hair. To make matters worse he probably didn't even play the guitar or had legions of groupies.

    My hopes weren't all dashed, though. Zebulon here was born in 1721 and was one of the ten soldiers of the American Revolution I have hanging out in my tree. He is a DAR ancestor and that means he's on the DAR website. 

    Drew is one of my 7th great-grandparents and was a son of a selectman in Dover, New Hampshire. I think that fact would have come in handy during high school as I had cross country meets in Dover....

    Zebulon may not have played heavy metal. BUT! He did work with metal as a blacksmith! That's another point in his favor! He did alright for himself, it seems. He married a woman named Sarah Chandler and had seven children. The name certainly left an impression on me because of how cool it sounds when you say it out loud. Is it shallow? Probably. It's still a cool name and aside from being the frontrunner for a metal band, Zebulon Drew sounds like a great name for a detective!

2. Caterina

    One of the most common Italian names in my tree is the name "Caterina". My second great-grandmother, a third great-grandmother, a fourth great-grandmother and several living relatives share the name all over my father's paternal side. You'd think seeing the same name over and over again would be annoying. Not really. It's cool seeing the name pop up as it's usually part of various Italian naming traditions.

    The name "Caterina" is actually important to me as it helped me figure out a few issues I had on the Tedesco branch. For a while, I had the wrong parents of Antonio Tedesco attached to the branch and over on Ancestry I was not getting any Thrulines for him and the parents I had attached to the tree beforehand. Now that was annoying because I KNEW I had Tedesco cousins. Over a dozen DNA matches from that line and no Thruline up to the fifth great-grandparents? Yeah. Someone messed up and it was probably me!! I know Thrulines are only as good as other peoples' trees. But, I think I can trust ones that are well sourced. That and DNA doesn't lie. 

    I did a little researching and changed the parents to Giuseppe Tedesco and Caterina Rocca. The Thrulines I looked for popped right up and things began to make SO MUCH SENSE! My mind was blown away! Why? Well, Maria Tedesco's sister was named Caterina and that's the name of a cousin in San Pietro. My great-aunt's middle name is Caterina. It's also the name of her daughter. Everything made sense! The answer was sitting in front of me this whole time! I know I probably talked about this before. But, it bears repeating ! I honestly don't think it's a coincidence because of the naming traditions in my family and several other factors. So, "Caterina" became one of my favorite names because it helped me solve a mystery. I just wish I had a pic of her. I had to use Caterina Coppola who is from a different part of the tree. They were born in the same area of Italy, though!

3. Jean Picard

    Jean Picard. I....There are a few things you should know about me. I read comics and I am a HUGE Star Trek fan. I grew up watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine", "Voyager" and "Enterprise". When I first saw the name of my 9th great-grandfather, I immediately thought of the captain of the USS Enterprise during that time. His name was "Jean-Luc Picard". 

    While Jean here did not have the "Luc" added to his name, my mind still went for the pop culture reference. It can't be helped. Certain names are going to sound like real people who really existed. I bet anything that there was a real Clark Kent or Peter Parker running around. That reminds me. I need to check the 1910s census in New York for Steve Rogers.

  I digress. If you really think about it. Both men are remarkably similar to each other. Jean-Luc Picard was a noted explorer and diplomat. Jean Picard left his native France and helped to explore Quebec. Not much of his diplomatic skills are known and I honestly doubt he was the most British sounding Frenchman ever. No disrespect to Sir Patrick Stewart, of course! The man is a legend. 

   

    As far as Jean goes, that's probably as far as the similarities go and I probably hurt myself by stretching that far. It's funny to see names you associate with pop culture show up in your tree. You might have an ancestor whose name is synonymous with a very evil character or a hero. It's just a fun thing to find every once in a while. Now, if only I had a Peter Parker....

4. Capobianco 

    Capobianco is a very interesting Italian last name. Maria Giovanna Capobianco was my 2nd great-grandmother and she was born in Frigento in 1856. Her last name means "white head" in Italian and it turns up quite a bit with her extended family because she was one of six children. Her father, Angelo was one of nine children and Angelo's brother, Giovanni Antonio actually came to America.

    While in America, Giovanni Antonio changed his last name to "Whitehead" for unknown reasons. He had at least two children and not much is known what happened to them after the 1910 US census in Michigan. Did they have children? I'd have to look. I haven't come across any DNA matches from this line, yet. But, I hope they are out there.

    I picked Capobianco to talk about because it's a fun Italian last name and I kind of wonder how it came about. Did an Italian guy have a head full of white hair? That's a possibility. The name sparks the imagination and I hope there are connections to the Capobianco family out there. To date I haven't found many Capobianco cousins. You never know. I did find Ferraiolo ones!

    Those four names are just a few that either have a great story behind them, make me laugh or have helped me solve a genealogical puzzle. I have many other favorites in my tree. It's honestly hard to pick one. But, these are the four that have either helped me in my research or had some entertainment value. Either way, they stuck with me and I'm sure everyone reading this blog has names that have done the same for them. Think about the names in your tree that make you smile as you do your research. Make it so!

And see you....out there.