My cousin married a man named Jim James...
I have a similar story.
But first, I have Henry's on my mother's side, Henry's on my father's side and Henry's by marriage (not my marriage, I was born a Henry and I'll die one, it's not Spousal Unit's name. Any of them
) And no kissin cousins either
Everybody named Henry in the US of A
So this one comes from the Henry's by marriage:
Yes, there was a Henry Henry. And what do they name the firstborn son? Henry Henry Jr.
Looking into the family history with a Welsh maternal line can be fun like that, we have a couple of James James, but the number of Edward Edwards, Thomas Thomas etc etc, you couldn't make it up truly...
And we have an Olivia Oliver on the Junior Ice Dance circuit (although, she used to use the double-barrelled surname Rybicka-Oliver)
Thank goodness my surname isn’t also a first name (although, there is a pretty good French band with the same name).
On the other hand, my first name can also be a surname. Indeed, there was a guy in my year at school who had my first name as his surname. And he really hated me (I don’t think that was because of my name, though).
My sister and I are fighting over which of us, if we ever have kids and if one of them is ever a boy, gets to name her son our last name as his first name.
Oh. My. Goodness. That is exactly what happened in my family! :shocked:
When my maternal Granda was born, my Great Granny gave him her maiden name as his first name. And a few years later, her sister did the same with her son.
I never thought of it like this until this conversation came up, but both my Grandfathers had first names that are also surnames. But, I have no idea where my paternal Granda’s first name came from.
Re: names, I always thought it was funny that my mom thought Elton John's name was John Elton! That's what she would call him!
Ah, but that’s not his real name. So, it doesn’t count.
But, it is still funny.
so much! I enjoyed your summary thoroughly!
…
Thanks again for taking the time to recap the stories.
While I have the opportunity, I thought I may as well finish my summaries of the 16[SUP]th[/SUP] series of “Who Do You Think You Are?”
5.
Katherine Ryan: Never seen her doing comedy before, but she is just so naturally funny that you couldn’t help but take a liking to her (I think it was down to quirky Canadian things about her). And the reason she was doing it also made you like her. Basically, her daughter is as English as you can get, and she looks down on her Mum for being foreign. So, Katherine was on a mission to find English ancestors so that she could counter that she was English too. Now, Katherine knew there was no point going down her Dad’s side of the family, because they are Irish through and through (but, when she had a name like “Katherine Ryan”, I think we had all already worked that one out!) So, she was just going down her Mum’s side. And it turned out that her ancestors had been in Canada a VERY long time – over 250 years! And when she did eventually get an ancestor from overseas… they were Irish!
Fortunately, they then went down another branch, and found somebody from England. And she was delighted!
6.
Paul Merton: Although I had known the name for years, I hadn’t actually seen Paul Merton in anything before. Paul’s Mum was Irish, and she was brought up in foster care after being orphaned when she was a baby. As a result, Paul knew very little about her family, and so wanted to find out about them. The thing I found frustrating about Paul is that, despite him being half Irish, he is the perfect example of an English person who doesn’t understand Ireland at all. Like, whereas I had all the storylines worked out as soon as they arose, he was having to have everything spelt out to him. Very slowly. Anyway, despite coming from a small village in Co. Cork, it turned out that, although relatively short, Paul’s Grandfather had a very eventful life. Paul’s Mum was led to believe that he was lost at sea. But, that wasn’t quite what happened. And, as a result of not knowing the story right, none of the family knew that he was actually buried in an unmarked grave in Wales. So, Paul became the first family member to ever visit the grave. And I thought it was lovely when he said that he was going to buy a headstone for it. In the second half, he went investigating the English side of his family. They were all from London, but the surprise was that his Great-Great Grandparents, and his Great-Great-Great Grandfather were musicians. There was a funny story about his Great-Great Grandmother when she was 14, but then when the wider picture was looked at, it was actually a sign of how bad things were for her.
7.
Sharon Osbourne: This was a proper programme of two halves. The first half was very happy, and the second half was a tough watch. Now, all I really knew about Sharon was that her Dad was in music management, and she had followed him into the business. But, I never knew where she was from (I knew Ozzy was from Birmingham, but hadn’t a clue about Sharon). So, the first thing I learnt was that she was from Brixton. She knew all about her Dad’s family, but knew practically nothing about her Mum’s. To the extent that she didn’t even know her Grandfather’s name. But, she found out quite early on in the programme. And she also found out that her Grandmother had a sister who she never knew about. The three of them were performers, and were in an act together. And Sharon was having a great time finding out about them. But then it took a sad turn. And it got worse when she then started looking into her Grandfather’s family. The big shock for Sharon was when she found out that his Mum was American. But, it turned out that her parents were English and Irish and had emigrated to America, settling in Fall River, Massachusetts. And this was where the story got very harrowing. I won’t spoil the story, but will just say that I was getting very emotional just watching it, so you can imagine what it was like for Sharon.
8.
Mark Wright: They definitely saved the best till last. As I said in my previous post, I had never even heard tell of him before. And the introduction explained why – he is in “The Only Way Is Essex”. But what a fascinating family story! His Grandfather was a boxer, and was always under the impression that their family had come to England from Italy via Poland. And as a result, Mark always went around trying to chat girls up using the line that he was Italian. But, he wanted to find out for sure while his Grandfather was still around. The first surprise he got was that he had Jewish ancestry. And I thought “aha! That is where Poland comes in!” But, it turned out that they were not Eastern European Jews, but were Spanish Jews (and we found out near the end of the programme that they had come to England via Holland, not Poland). And they had been in London for a very long time. The ancestor who first came to England was a swordsman from Andalucía, which Mark thought was great because he spends a lot of time in Marbella. And when he got to Andalucía, we inevitably got to see him getting a lesson in sword fighting. But, then the story got VERY interesting, with the story of the family’s dealings with the Spanish Inquisition.
So, there you go. Another series under our belts.
I hope the next series is as good as this one!
CaroLiza_fan
