Some of the founding fathers’ names were really weird. Most were fairly conventional (I saw [name]Thomas[/name] a lot), and reflect the “trendy” names of forty to sixty years before the declaration was written. There were a surprisingly small number of Johns (5), 6 [name]Williams[/name], and 6 [name]Georges[/name]. But there were several “out there” names too.
Here are some of the stranger ones:
[name]Lyman[/name] [name]Hall[/name]
Button Gwinnett
[name]Francis[/name] Lightfoot [name]Lee[/name]
[name]Caesar[/name] [name]Rodney[/name]
[name]Carter[/name] [name]Braxton[/name]
[name]William[/name] Whipple
[name]William[/name] [name]Williams[/name]
[name]Elbridge[/name] [name]Gerry[/name]
[name]Robert[/name] [name]Treat[/name] [name]Paine[/name]
My laptop is called Buttons XD
Never expect to see a guy named that…
And [name]Robert[/name] [name]Treat[/name] [name]Paine[/name] sounds like the victim of parents with great ambitions for their son…
Lightfoot is actually kind of sweet ^^
[name]William[/name] Whipple’s great-great-great-grandfather was [name]Matthew[/name] Whipple of [name]Essex[/name], [name]England[/name].
[name]William[/name]'s great-great-grandfather was [name]John[/name] Whipple, [name]Matthew[/name]'s son.
My great x 11 grandmother, was [name]Mary[/name] Whipple (married name [name]Baker[/name]), who was [name]John[/name] Whipple’s sister. So my great x 11 grandmother was [name]William[/name] Whipple’s great-great aunt (or something like that).
It’s so funny to see [name]William[/name] Whipple on this list, knowing that somewhere along the line, I have a distant relationship to him. He’s obviously not an ancestor, as an ancestor has to be in the direct family line.
elsabea,
That is interesting. I love genealogy and I include collateral lines as well. Interesting story.
My many greats grandfather was [name]Henry[/name] “The Puritan” [name]Way[/name] who immigrated to the new land ([name]America[/name]) from [name]England[/name] in 1630 aboard the ship “[name]Mary[/name] and [name]John[/name]”. One of his sons (not my direct ancestor) was named [name]Aaron[/name] and was involved in putting an end to the nonsense during the [name]Salem[/name] witch trials.
When I finished researching most of my direct line, I started doing the collateral lines, and I used to Google the names and see if they came up with anything exciting.
When I put in my great x 12 grandmother, [name]Matthew[/name] Whipple, his name came up as he often gets named in biographies of [name]William[/name] Whipple.
This is the first article I came across (if you scroll down to the fifth entry, dated 04.05.08):
[name]William[/name] Whipple, great (2) grandson of [name]Elder[/name] [name]John[/name]* and (3) of [name]Matthew[/name], Sr., of Bocking, [name]England[/name]
I realised that it was the same [name]Matthew[/name] Whipple and thus I was (very) distantly related to one of the Founding Fathers.
(* [name]Elder[/name] [name]John[/name] was just named [name]John[/name], but he named his first born son [name]John[/name], and thus he ended up being known as [name]Elder[/name] [name]John[/name]!)
It pleased my dad no end, as he’s a dual US-UK citizen, having been born to an English mother and American father in the States, and although he moved to the UK aged 8 and has been here ever since, he sees himself as being both American and British. I know it’s nice for him to know he has this ‘connection’ to a Founding Father.
What fascinated me about the Whipple connection, is that [name]John[/name] and [name]Matthew[/name], were [name]Matthew[/name]'s only two sons (he also had seven daughters, including my great (11) grandmother [name]Mary[/name]). I can’t imagine how that must have felt, when his only two sons set sail for this ‘new land’, knowing that he would never see them again.
I’m about to start doing more research in to my paternal grandfather’s direct line, because as I said, he’s American and therefore I need to access US data for that. I got everything UK based done first, then did some research on [name]German[/name] data, as my maternal grandmother was [name]German[/name], so now I’m going to start doing the US line. I’m really looking forward to it.
