I'm NOT Talking to You! Or: Yes, I AM Talking to You.

I grew up in a family of six children, five of whom were girls. I can only imagine what it was like for my dad.

In moving through my LONG list of census to fix, I came across this household in the 59th district of Fayette County, Kentucky in 1880:

Arthur DeLong (head) age 28
Etta (wife) age 24 *Real name Henrietta*
Henrietta (daughter) age 2
Henrietta Berkley (mother-in-law) age 53
Sallie Curtley (aunt) age 68.

Are we seeing the problem here?  I never understood the concept of giving a daughter the same name as the mother. It's compounded obviously by the grandmother also being called Henrietta. Arrgh. I'm sure Mr. DeLong referred to her as Mother Berkley and not by her first name, but I am sure there was a lot of confusion anyway.

And poor Aunt Sallie. They spelled her last name wrong. It should be Kirtley.



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