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/   

Snow and Genealogy

I think Mother Nature likes to make me crazy.  It was 60 degrees here on Monday and Tuesday, the last two days of January.  On the first day of February, it was 40 degrees, and then the temperature kept dropping and sleet and freezing drizzle began to fall.  Yesterday, we had a very light fine, dry snow fall all day, and it's still coming down... one or two flakes at a time.  It was 14 degrees when I left this morning to care for the hens and cats on Dellwood; I had asked my nephew if he would shovel the sidewalks at Dellwood if it snowed, as he lives one block away.  He never answered, so I shoveled like mad this morning.  It was still 14 degrees when I returned home, 90 minutes later.  At 11 a.m., it's 19 degrees.  -  But it's supposed to be 58 Saturday, Sunday and Monday....  Is the Lady upstairs having hot flashes?
     In any event, I've hit a couple of walls in my genealogy work - Elizabeth Cox was born on 25 Jun 1675 according to her grave stone, and died on 10 May 1837.  According to Family Search, she was married to Hezekiah Hall on 11 Nov 1784.  But there are no records of her parents that I have been able to find....  The other wall, at the moment is Moses Cleveland's grandfather, Richard Cleveland. The church records of St Nicholas Parish in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, record Moyses Cleveland being baptized on 26 February 1604, and that his father's name is Isack Cleveland.  Church records indicate that Isaac was married to a woman named Alice, and that Isaac was born 1 Jan 1584 and that he died on 3 June 1626.  Church records also indicate that his father (Isack's) was Richard Cleveland, who was baptized in July of 1542 at St Nicholas Parish in Ipswich, Suffolk.
   I need to find Elizabeth Cox's parents, and I need to find Richard Cleveland's parents....   Of course, there are lots of other dead-ends, also.
   I start taking care of Maggie May today - her folks are heading off to Vail for a wedding in the family.  That means we should have a vehicle available for the rest of the weekend.  Then, next weekend, Rosie's parents will be gone and we will again have wheels...  Having a vehicle for use is heavenly.

My Ancestor, Thomas Nock, 1617 - 1666

Yesterday, just for the heck of it, I decided to see if any information had appeared on the man who is the "end" of of my father's male ancestry.  Tracing my Dad back, father to father, I end up with Thomas Nock, who was born in 1617 in England and died in 1666 in Dover, New Hampshire.  The church has the recording of his birth date, as he told his wife (Rebecca Tibbetts) and the minister recorded his death date.
    This is what I  know of Thomas Nock, from multiple years of research:  he was born in England according to his wife.  He married his wife, Rebecca Tibbetts, in Dover.  Thomas had an established home in Dover in 1652, and was recognized as a free man.  Thomas and Rebecca's first child was born in 1654; as she was born about July 1636, it is posited that they were married in 1652 or 1653 in Dover.  They had five documented children, and the last, Henry, was born four months after his father's death in October 1666.  Thomas and Rebecca's second son, Sylvanus, married Elizabeth Emery, and their third child, daughter Rebecca, married William Willey.  (Less than two years after the death of Thomas Nock, his widow, Rebecca, married Philip Benmore.)
   I searched  long and hard to find out about the the surname "Nock" in England.  Both the Tibbetts and the Emery families, who married into the family, have stated that the name is from the old "atten Oakes" name, meaning the family originally lived near oak trees.  In England, that name has been changed by time to several variations - Knock, Knocke, Noake, Noakes, Nock, Nocks.  But there is another possibility - old English also contains the word "nock" which means a small round hill; and a person with that last name would have lived near such a hill.
   There were, and are, a lot of Nock and Nocks families in Shropshire, England.  There are small pockets of families with the same names in almost every area of England; there are some in Scotland (not  spelled Knox); and there are some in Wales, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.  Both the Emery and the Tibbetts families have declared that the Thomas Nock family is from Shropshire - but there is no solid proof that has yet been discovered.
   The whole reason I'm writing this particular blog is due to a visit to Rootsweb, a part of Ancestry.com.  Anyone can fill out a family tree and send it in, and get it posted there.  That is one of the reasons I've been recently writing a lot about checking sources, research and facts.   I looked up Thomas Nock, to see if anyone had any factual information that might have turned up regarding his parentage and place of birth.
   I really laughed out loud, and startled Rosie, the elderly dog I'm currently caring for...  First were the listings that said that "my" Thomas Nock was born in 1654 (that was actually his first son, Thomas, with Rebecca Tibbetts) and that the son had married the mother (said Rebecca Tibbetts), and had died in 1666, having had 5 children with his mother).   I know that it's confusing when first sons are always named the same - but...  really!
    And then I saw a new listing that said that "my" Thomas Nock was the son of Thomas Knox and Jayne Marie Cristy of Shropshire, England.  I began to investigate that, and it immediately fell apart.  Jayne Marie Cristy was the wife of Harold Thomas Knox, Jr (1932 - 1987); and Jayne herself was born in Illinois in 1931 and passed away in 2003.  How someone decided that Jayne was born in Romney Marsh in England in 1609, and was the mother of a man born in 1617 is a thing that has me scratching my head in puzzlement...
     The family surname was Nock when Thomas arrived in colonial America; in several generations, the "s" was added, and became Nocks.  Then we had the large wave of Scots immigrants in the northeast, and the learned people who could write decided the name was Scots and changed the spelling to Knox.  Some of my grandfather's aunts and uncles spelled the name Knox, some spelled it Nock, and Great-grandpa James Loren spelled his last name Nocks....  A part of the family came from England with the surname Waterhouse; after eight generations in Maine, they became Watrous....
   Check your facts, if you are doing genealogy!!!  Just flat out copying can lead to huge mistakes.
 

Puppy Attention

I'm watching Cleo and Tess play in the back yard while I write this.  There are also a lot of birds at the feeders, and a few squirrels who dare to make runs under the dogs noses.  The two cats are inside, and I'm surprised the gardener is not yet here.  Martin usually arrives between 8:30 and 9 on Saturday mornings.  Lily has been begging for love and affection since I arrived yesterday, and Lyra has been, also.  Of course, Cleo, the puppy thinks that she should be the center of attention, and then there's Tess...  It's hard to keep everyone happy when two sets of adults are away.
     The sky is a beautiful clear blue, with no visible clouds.  The temperature was 31 degrees (F) when I arose this morning, but  has warmed up to 53 so far; the forecast high is 68.  It's also eerily quiet outside today, other than the bird song and rustling of leaves.  For once, it seems there are no baseball, soccer, or football games being played on the school grounds today - and there are no children screaming as they run around outside, either.  Seems like the quiet before the storm, almost.
   I want to get immersed in my family tree research, but I can't until Christina returns to take care of her critters again.  Actually, I could, but I focus on my research so intently that I don't listen  to the dogs, or think about their needs - which one cannot do with a young puppy in the house.  I simply can't crate her for hours on end, and my other alternative is to allow her only in a tiled room with her toys and bed.  That doesn't work too well, either.  So I'm hoping that Christina will return tonight, or early tomorrow.  It will depend on  how much she misses Cleo, and whether or not she's having a good time with her friends from high school.
   If I didn't have to worry about the puppy, I'd be totally involved in research right now, instead of blogging...