Genealogy Research - And Odd or Unusual Names

I started working on my family genealogy soon after my father passed away when I was 24 years old.  I realized that I had never met any of my father's relatives, that I could remember.  In actuality, I saw several of them before I was four years old, and I believe Dad's sister visited us in Texas before I was 5.  Otherwise, Dad's family were just old photos from the 1940s and names.  I spoke with his sister-in-law on the day that he died on the telephone.  I really don't know why we didn't visit Dad's family over  the years - we visited his friends from 20-plus years in the Navy, and their families; and we spent most vacations on the island in Virginia, where Mom's family had lived for over 350 years.  But Dad's family?  I wouldn't have known them had I met them in the street.
   I started building information on my Dad's family through his sister-in-law, Theoda Gwenn Smith Nocks, who was married to Dad's older brother.  She sent me copies of obituaries and old photos, and got me filled in on the previous two generations of her husband's family.  This was in the mid-1980s, when the internet wasn't easily available, nor was much genealogy information on line, at that time.  I spent a lot of time in the University of Florida archives, reading through old US Federal Censi on microfilm, and hoping to find a break.
   In the late 1980's I was referred to the Church of Latter Day Saints' local research library, and I was able to build my tree even more.  Since the world-wide-web has come into being, with all sorts of information, I have been able to delve even further back.  I am still stuck on my Swedish great-great-grandparents, though.  I have seen three different renderings of their names, but have been unable to locate any of them, separately, or together in the Swedish records that are available (for free) on-line.  I hope to find and document them at some time...
   In the meantime, I have run into quite a few remarkable and memorable names...  Some belong to my family, and some have just caught my eye as I was looking for someone else.  My favorites from family are:  Hepzibah Starbuck (of Nantucket) who married Captain Joshua Hussey, producing the full name of Hepzibah Starbuck Hussey.  It rolls rather pleasantly from the tongue, doesn't it?  Another relative is Hatevil Hall - actually there are more than thirty (30) Hateveil Halls in my family lineage, as each eldest son of each son born into the Hall family, named their first-born son Hatevil.  (And it is pronounced like two words - Hate Evil.)  Some wrote an article about unusual names, and wondered if Hatevil Hall really hated evil.  Well, the first few Hatevil Halls were Quaker elders, so I would say that they did hate evil.  I also have a great-uncle named Eighty One (or Eight One) Mobley - his father George gave most of his children unusual names: Respino, Kilpatrick DeGrosse, Genoa Veve, etc.  Eight One got his name because he was born one minute after midnight on 1 January 1881...   My grandmother's brother was named Robert Raymond Lancaster, and he'd tell the Census-takers that the R. R. stood for different names every ten years - Rocky Road, Rail Ryder, River Raider, and so on.  At least I knew ahead of time that Uncle Ray had a warped sense of humor.
   Recently I have also found the names John Diklis, Joe Fuzee Cretein, Worty Wartes, and a couple named Johnson - the wife was Eused and the husband was Noway....
   If you decide to look into your family tree, I highly recommend the LDS website called Family Search.  You can choose to share your family tree information, or not to do so.  The site can be found at:  https://www.familysearch.org/   

What's In A Name?

It's pretty amazing how some companies want to tell you exactly what your surname means and where it comes from.  I laugh very frequently when I read all the many different responses I get regarding my maiden name - Nocks.    While growing up, I never thought to question my father about his knowledge of his surname.  He frequently told me that his mother's maiden name was Lancaster, and that her family could be traced back to the Lancaster family from the War of the Roses in England.  (DNA testing has shown that's not true, recently.)  But he was never very vocal about the name Nocks.  There was some speculation that it was an Americanized version of the Scots Knox, or that it was a garbled version of the German Nachts.  But there was no surety.
   I've been told by various "surname research" companies that the name is from the Scots, is  from the German, is from Dutch, French and Danish. And that it's changed with time....
   In doing my genealogy research, I've been able to trace my father's family name, from father to father to father, back to the man who arrived from England.  His name was Thomas Nock.  His church records state that he was born on 12 November 1617 in England; that he had a residence and family in Dover, New Hampshire by 1652; and that he died in Dover in late October of 1666.  Several researchers say that Thomas Nock was from Shropshire;  I have been unable to verify this. After three or four generations in North America, the family name had an "s" added to the end.  Parts of the family stayed Nock, and parts were Nocks.  Then there was a large influx of Scots settlers into the northeastern colonies, and, suddenly, because of the learned scrivners, Nock and Nocks had Knox added to the spellings.  In looking at Dad's lineage, we start with a Nock, which becomes Nocks, then switches to Knox for two generations, then switches back to Nocks....   It can make you crazy...
   And what does Nock or Nocks mean?  In doing my own research on Old English and Anglo-Saxon names, I have two distinct possibilities.  Since the original spelling of "nock" was just that,  I, personally, believe that the name was from the Anglo-Saxon - a nock was a small rounded hill, and having that surname meant that you lived beside a small rounded hill.  The other meaning, which has been thrown at me with great intensity (to the point that I resent it) is that Nock is a corruption of "Noke" or "Nokes."  Noke and Nokes is derived from Old English, and means "near the oaks" or "near oak trees."  -  And that is a quite plausible take on my surname...  but I just don't like it; which is silly.  
   The meaning of Nock, or Nocks, is actually unimportant.  What matters is that I know that Thomas Nock was born somewhere in England in late 1617.  Now I just need to find out where, in all of England, that was - and I mean something that is without question - not a "he might have been the third son of so-and-so, but we don't have his Christian name..."