In some cultures, it was common to reuse the name of the child that had died. Don’t assume two children with the same name and different years of birth are actually just the same child. It could be two separate children with the same name.
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In the Netherlands it was quiet common to reuse a child’s name if that child died young. A lot of families have children with the same name. However, don’t assume that the first one died if there is a second or even third child with the same name. There are lots of families where two children had the same name because – for example – both grandfathers had the same name. The children – however – could have used different nicknames.
In my family I have found two sons with the name of Petrus. One was called Piet and the other Pieter.
This is very true. My families from Ostfriesland reused names of deceased children on a regular basis–particularly if the deceased child had been named for a grandparent or other close relative.
I found an one child baptised with his paternal grandparent’s name, went to sea at an early age, reported as died. Subsequent child was bapt. With same name. first child returns after several years and to keep town records straight the were refered to as ‘Elder’ & ‘Younger.’
My gr-gr-grandparents had a daughter named Mary. She died of influenza. They had another daughter a few years later and named her Mary also because one of their sons missed his sister Mary so they gave her the same name
A good reminder – I’ve come across that several times in my own family. Sometimes the only way to well them apart is that they changed the order of the first names so Henry Charles because Charles Henry.
And it wasn’t uncommon for the first child of the 2nd marriage to be named after the deceased spouse.
When I first started doing my paternal side genealogy I found records with my father’s name and birth year of 1900.As I knew he was born in 1908,I figured it was a typo or error.Later on I found out that my grandparents first born son,Harry, was born in April 1900 and died several months later in August 1900.The name wasn’t recycled right away as my father had 2 older brothers born after the 1st Harry.My family never knew about this baby boy who passed away at such a tender age.