Don't assume Jr. and Sr. are related to each other in 18th century and before

Question

Didn't realize this until today:

• Senior and Junior and Tertius, Oh My! Unrelated People with the Same Name

Which cites in part:

• For a classic dissertation about these terms and others, see George E. McCracken, "Terms of Relationship in Colonial Times" in The American Genealogist, 55 (1979): 52-54.

And see also the related page:

• When is an Uncle Not an Uncle? Slippery Terms of Relationship

It's so easy to assume modern conventions when researching, nice to be reminded of this here and it explains Robert Woodson, Jr., son of John Woodson, Sr., which I was scratching my head about earlier today!

Comments

@Ellen, seems your edits removed all the external links.  Was that intentional?

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AARGH! No, it wasn't intentional. That happened when I edited your question from my Android smartphone. I've encountered this bug before (and I reported it), but I forgot that I shouldn't edit G2G content with links when using my phone.

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I restored two of the links I broke. (Were there others?) You have my apologies.

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No problem, just didn't want to change it back without understanding.

Answer 1

Very helpful.  I knew that at some point, but I tend to forget to apply that while researching.