Genealogy Chat

Any ideas about their origin? see below for more details

I've just come across these, as siblings of my ancestor, who has the more ordinary name of Joseph. Another brother is called Habbakuk (I know this is biblical). Parents are Esther & Isaac. Curshon is male; Betheris & Paron are female. Curshon is on the IGI & also on a transcript done by the local FHS so I am reasonably confident about the spelling. Paron is a friend's best guess for a baptism from the original parish register, and also appears on a burial transcribed by the local FHS. Betheris appears on the IGI but I have found no close matches anywhere else. We are talking late 18th century Staffordshire. The family are English, and not Jewish or any other persuasion as far as I know. They may be non-conformist, though were married in Anglican churches. Any ideas anyone?

Quaker springs to mind.

Thanks Alter! I had discounted that as a possibility because of finding the family's marriages/baptisms etc in Anglican records. But I do believe other families with this surname were Quakers back in Derbyshire, where they originated, so I will look into that.

they had seperate burial grounds aswell

I've just had a look at my Concordance, which is an index to the St. James (C of E) Bible, but none of the names appear in the Bible, at least with those spellings. If they're Quaker names, I wonder where they come from? I'll ask a Quaker acquaintance if she has any idea.

Well I have dozens and dozens and dozens of Quakers on my tree and have never heard of any of those names! Merry

Nor do I remember seeing anything like those when trawling Quaker records......They just have ordinary names (Mary William etc) with a smattering of Old Testament ones...Job, Joseph etc Merry

This name betheris-is it a transcription,or can you see the name written? the reason being.......... written in a certain way it could very well be a mistranscription of Bethany,ive tried writing it out and i can see how it could have happened.

I've not found any other references to Betheris, and I've tried all sorts of ways of saying it. the nearest (could be this girl's marriage) is Betrice, which I could imagine as Beatrice. I'm trying to trace this lady elsewhere, to see what else it may have been recorded as.

Oops, just read your first post again, PROPERLY!! LOL They can't be Quakers, as it was forbidden for a Quaker to enter a church (I'm talking pre-1850's here), never mind attend a service, NEVER MIND be MARRIED in one! They would have been ''disowned'' (that is their membership terminated) by their Quaker Meeting if they had entered a C of E church.....Though they might be re-instated later if their crime wasn't perceived to be too terrible! Quakers conducted their own marriage ceremonies from the mid-1600's onwards. Merry

Is it likely that they were lapsed Quakers? Is it the sort of thing people could follow for a few years then change their minds & go back to being 'Anglican'

Im convinced it is Bethany Beth self explanitory eris= when written in cursive with a looped e,followed by the two risers in the n and a shallow tailed y is looking like an s-you really have to mimic the writing.

and Paron must be Aaron- an overexuberant Capitital A with a sloping riser and deep loop sweeping back ......

Lapsed Quakers if the names were ordinary (but then they wouldn't need to be Quakers at all!! LOL) and probably not Quakers at all if the names were more strange than Aaron and Bethany! As another aside..... Quakers would not use names that had any Pagan connotations.....to be honest I don't know what Fore-names would come into this catagory, but they were not allowed to use the names of the months of the year or days of the week, as they are pagan in origin. (this is still the case with many Quakers today.....January is called the 1st month etc) Merry

Alter...you have too many ''tits'' in your last reply!! LOLOLOL!! Merry

I wondered about Aaron too, but have discounted it 1. definitely female 2. baptism & burial are 23 years apart, so 2 different people's original handwriting 3. 2 separate transcriptions have read/misread it as Paron. of course the baptism & burial might be 2 different people, but what a co-incidence if they are

update - re betheris the marriage entry I found for Betrice - there is a death recorded for a Beatrice aged 40. This fits with the baptism for Betheris. If its the same lady she married at 22. I haven't seen the parish register entry for this baptism, so I will now arrange that. Still puzzling about the origin of Curshon though!

I have some on my tree that have a mothers or grandmothers maiden name as a first name, could this be possible for Curshon. I also have one named after a village I think.

Hi Vicky I've certainly come across Betteris/Beatrice before Could Curshon be a mishearing or mispelling of Gershon? That IS a biblical name, I believe.