A Junior NOT named for father?

Question

Hi, new member here. :waves:

My husband has an ancestor with a "Junior" after his name on a marriage record from the mid-1700s. All of the family experts insist his father had a different name (Ephriam Lindsay, Jr born to Thomas Lindsay). But those birth records don't record the Junior.

Was this a common occurrence? Or did the great aunts get this one wrong? (It doesn't help that the line leads back to royalty, and I'll ruin a lot of presumptions if they were...)

Thanks for any help!

Comments

To make things more confusing I have found the actual first name of Junior being given as both a first or second name.  I know of two as the first and one as the second.  And these are modern day people.

Answer 1

I've seen a number of instances in colonial American records of two men of the same name being called "senior" and "junior" (or "the elder" and "the younger") in local records, simply to avoid confusion between them. The two men might  be uncle and nephew, cousins, or unrelated, and sometimes they were very close together in age.

The first time I saw this documented, I thought it was unusual, but since then I've seen quite a few more instances.

Answer 2

I've seen it before.  Usually it's a grandson of the Sr. Sometimes it can be a nephew.  I've also seen "the 3rd when it's on a census and there were 3 people of the same name on one census sheet.  One that I find a bit strange is when there's a Sr. and a Jr. but they have different middle names.

Comments

But it's not common for father-son first names to be different? I'm still suspicious of the connection that was made years ago.

And the middle names would be my own great grandfather and his first son.

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Hi Janet!  I know that in the 1500 & 1600s in England, Jr. And Sr. were  sometimes used to refer to men of the same first name in a town, ref. Christopher Smith Sr. And Jr. In Stratford Upon Avon in the 1630s.  These were not men of the same family, but older and younger men in the same town with the same name.

I do not know if this was done in other countries or at later times, but I would think it might be possible in colonial America.

Answer 3

In my family a Jr.name is given to a nephew. It's a weird story where a nephew came to the new world with a father and son. Carl Christopher is the nephew of Christopher and takes over Christopher's business so they call Carl Christopher Christopher Jr.

Weird.