DEAR PAUL

Guy Etchells starts us off with a reader challenge regarding traditional naming patterns that he uncovered whilst researching his family tree. If you have ever traced Scottish or Irish ancestry you will be aware that many families followed a traditional naming pattern when naming their children. A guide to traditional naming patterns can be found at http://familytr.ee/naming.

We often also see the first name re-used again after a first child sadly died, to ensure that the family keep to the traditional naming pattern. It was whilst Guy was researching his family from Newton Heath in Manchester, that he came across a child named Mary being baptised after her older sister, another Mary, had died.

Nothing remarkable here, you might say, but in this instance the baptism of the second child took place just three days after the burial of the first child. The first Mary Etches was born on 3 April 1742 and was buried on 14 March 1744-45. Her sister, Mary Etches, was baptised just three days after, on 17 March 1744-45. Both events took place in the Parish of All Saints, Newton Heath. Guy doesn’t know the details of why the name was so important to the family, but I wonder if any of our readers have found a burial followed so quickly by