#52Ancestors, Same Name

Okay, I am going to tempt fate. Last year I took a break from #52Ancestor blogging, but I saved all the prompts just in case. This year I am doing the same. Telling myself that I need to focus on getting employed before I do too much fun stuff.

But what the heck !

I will probably post out of order until I catch up – and I might even squeeze in some of last years as well. Hopefully life won't get too crazy busy and I won't end up being like the White Rabbit always running late. 

Here we are in week 6, almost week 7, and here is my first blog in forever.

SAME NAME

This topic has come up before so to be sure I don’t just repeat myself I have been back to check what I wrote. So this time, instead of people…PLACES.

When the English colonised the world they bundled all their place names up and gave them to the pilgrims, convicts and early settlers to use. So they did. They arrived in their new countries and gave their old familiar names to the places which already had names bestowed on them by the indigenous peoples in each land.

Those intrepid souls named their towns, farms and houses for the places they had left behind. Even those who had not left by choice seemed to do this. We see them everywhere on modern day maps. The same names, everywhere. Repeated in each state, province, city – do you know how many small towns are named Gladstone in New Zealand; how many Wellingtons there are around the globe ?

I always smile to myself though when I discover coincidences; families separated by time and distance, living in towns or cities bearing the same names.

I lived in Wellington, New Zealand most of my life and branches of both sides of my family lived in Wellington too. One in Somerset, England and one in Shropshire, England. While I haven’t lived anywhere named Milverton, different branches of my families have lived in Milverton, Somerset, England and Milverton, Warwickshire, England.

Uriah Cooper, a brother of my great-great-great-grandfather left Montacute, Somerset, England in 1839, travelled across the world to Australia and settled initially in Montacute, South Australia along with some of his old neighbours.

Henry Davys, elder brother of my great grandfather, was a builder in Cambridge, New Zealand. His son later joined him in the business. Their home on Victoria Street was named Treborough for the village where Henry’s wife was born in Somerset, England. They also ran a successful boarding house in Cambridge, which was named Kingston for the farm which had been in the Davys family for many generations in Somerset, England.

My Nana came from Leamington, Warwickshire; my cousin lives in Leamington, New Zealand. My great-great-great-grandfather was from Hampshire, England; my great-great-grandmother’s sister emigrated to USA and spent her final years in New Hampshire.

There is even a place called New Zealand in England.