#52Ancestors - Week 25 - Same Name

When we chose names for our sons we were careful to ensure that we did not select names previously used in our immediate families. Each of our sons therefore had a unique or special name. So far our sons have also followed this pattern when naming their children. Unfortunately many of our ancestors had other ideas about naming their children and have therefore confused family historians by using the same name over many generations.

One example is the name Simeon Lord.

You would think that a name such as Simeon Lord would be relatively unusual and easy to trace. Not like the name of another ancestor, John Smith. However in and near the small community of Todmorden in Lancashire (now Yorkshire) during the seventeenth, eighteenth and probably nineteenth centuries Simeon Lord was a common name.

My Simeon was born in Todmorden in 1771. His father was also Simeon Lord (1744-1787). For a little variety his father was John Lord (1699-1775) but it will be no surprise to know that John had a brother named Simeon (1700-1726). John's father was Simeon Lord (1668-1742). Simeon's father was Simeon Lord who died in 1682. His father was also Simeon Lord who died in 1667. Consequently I have a large number of Simeon Lords in my direct family line.

This would not be a problem except that the brothers of these Simeon Lords also usually named one of their sons Simeon. Other commonly used names in the Lord family were Joshua, John and Samuel.

Recently I came across a Simeon Lord born c1794 in Todmorden who part of Lord Brothers who made machinery for the cotton industry. One of the brothers, John, had also worked for the Fielden family before branching out with his brothers to create their own business. I am still trying to investigate the family tree of these brothers as they, no doubt, fit somewhere in the family tree.

To complicate the Todmorden branch of the family, the mother of my Simeon Lord was Ann Fielden. There were lots of Fieldens in the Todmorden area too, but that is another challenge to be unravelled.

My Simeon Lord came to Australia as a convict in 1791. The first son of Simeon Lord, also named Simeon, was born in Sydney in 1810 and died in 1892. He married Sarah Birch and they had eleven children. It would be no surprise to know that among those children there was a son named Simeon (1847-1816). My great grandfather, Alfred Percy Lord (1852-1927) was the younger brother in this family and of course he included Simeon when naming one of his sons however he used it as a second name.

Some years ago I was researching Simeon Lord in Trove and came across a Simeon Lord in the 1940s. This Simeon Lord, however, turned out to be a racehorse named after my great x3 grandfather.
 
References:
Lancashire Online - Burials at St Mary Parish of Todmorden 1720-1769
Lancashire Online - Burials at St Mary Parish of Todmorden 1660-1719
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History - Simeon Lord