Saturday, October 24, 2009

SNGF - My Most Unique Ancestral Names

This week Randy's request is the following:

"1) What is the most unique, strangest or funniest combination of given name and last name in your ancestry? Not in your database - in your ancestry.
2) Tell us about this person in a blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook.
3) Okay, if you don't have a really good one - how about a sibling of your direct ancestors?"

I prepared a pedigree chart in my software and discussed some of the more unusual prospects with my husband and oldest daughter, who laughed at some of them that were more unusual. She called them "the people in my computer." She didn't quite understand these are our ancestors.

The general consensus for the most unique name was for my third great-grandfather, Absalom Stroud Pitts, born about 1831 in Indiana and died about 1857 in Iowa. Little is known of Absalom's life, but in 1850 he was living in Lee County, Iowa. On 10 July 1853, he married Medina Sherer (or perhaps Scherer) who was the daughter of Solomon and Mary Sherer. Mary's maiden name may have been Geeding. According to the 1855 census, Absalom and Medina were still living in Lee County, Iowa.

From records given to me by my grandmother, Absalom and Medina had the following children:
1. Zerlinda Jane Pitts b. 11 Mar 1854. She is my second great-grandmother and most frequently went by Jenny. I think Zerlinda Jane qualifies as another of the most unique names in my tree.
2. Joseph Anderson Pitts b. 26 Feb 1855, died 1856
3. Ruth Ann Pitts b. 12 Mar 1856, died 1857
4. James Marion Pitts b. 5 Apr 1857

Joseph died in 1856 and both Absalom and Ruth in 1857. It was a very tragic few years for Medina as she lost two children and a husband. Medina went on to marry three more times and had another four children.

2 comments:

  1. How interesting! You and I both chose members of the Pitts family to write about last night! This is my first time to your blog; I look forward to following you! Who knows, maybe we're cousins :)

    http://herstoryan.blogspot.com/2009/10/sngf-most-unique-ancestral-name-fannie.html

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  2. Absalom is definitely unusual but I am partial to Azubah. :)

    For my own tree, I haven't come across too many odd ones in my direct line, but my second great-grandmother Cecelia did had a brother named Percival Rolls Kirkpatrick.

    -Heather

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