From the benefit of hindsight I recently noticed a strange anomaly with the name George within the MAWER family.

I had been posting new individuals onto my MAWER line and noticed that some families who named one of their sons George seemed to lose him and as they seemed dead set that they wanted a son named George they waited until the next son came along and he was baptized George.

The first George to die young among my ancestors was born to George and Frances MAWER, he was born in 1763 and only lived until 1768, and the very next child was a son so he was duly named George, being born just after the other George died, in 1768.

The next George was born 1767 to John and Ann MAWER and he died before 1768, and lo and behold another son was born in 1768 and called George.

The next family tragedy in line was to George and Ann MAWER, their first son George was born in 1800. I don’t have a death date for him but he must have died young because the next child was another son born 1803 and he was named George.

The final set of Georges that I found in my Family History research was born to a CURTIS family. The man John CURTIS married a MAWER lady, their first George was born 1813 and died 1813 and their next and successful attempt to have a George was born 1820.

It is only when we can look back at our list of ancestors that we see patterns emerging although the families concerned probably were not aware that their ‘George’ tragedy had happened before to other people.

It just seemed odd to me that these problems with sons called George happened,other sons within the various families thrived, so why did this happen? Also why were people so hooked up on repeating names of children who died. I have seen the same determination with various female names as well.

Personally I might have thought it a bit of a jinx.

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Filed under: Family history tips

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