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Archiver > ABERDEEN > 2008-01 > 1201368361


From: "Trena" <>
Subject: Re: [ABERDEEN] Fergus de Brus
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:26:01 -0500
References: <2dff56a0801260632k751b86e7leb9181f09fa15878@mail.gmail.com><479B577E.1020803@which.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gavin Bell"
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: [ABERDEEN] Fergus de Brus


> Stopping a patronymic chain (John, son of Andrew > David
> son of John > Alexander, son of David) at a given point is reckoned one
> of the common mechanisms for the creation of surnames. In this case, if
> the clock stopped with Alexander, then the family became "Davidson". If
> it was David who decided he wanted one of these newfangled surnames,
> then the family would have been "Johnson". But this did not happen just
> once for any particular name - it happened many times, in different
> places, at different times, among many different unrelated Johns,
> Andrews, Davids and Alexanders.

One of our lines goes to Shetland where in many cases patronymic naming
carried on for several more years than on the lower mainland. My 5 x
great-grandparents had three sons, with each of course having differing
forenames. When they each married and had children, the children had
different surnames: i.e. ~ Robert NICOLSON's three sons were John, James
and Christie. Their children's surnames became JOHNSON, JAMIESON/JAMESON
and CHRISTIE. Some in the next generation did stop the patronymic naming,
but a few others didn't until a generation or two later, which adds to the
confusion of trying to sort my own out from others.

I would be in grave error to assume all those with each/any of those
surnames in the Shetland Isles (or anywhere else in Scotland) were
automatically my ancestors. In earlier documents within our family lines,
BRUCE was the forename of a female, not a male. Eventually BRUCE did become
the forename for some of our males, but more commonly found in our 20th C
families.

Toni ~ Ontario

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