Keep in mind that in some ethnic backgrounds reusing” names of deceased children was a very common practice. One of my ancestral couples from Ostfriesland, Germany, had four daughters named Reenste born within a ten year time span. The first three died shortly after birth. The fourth one grew to adulthood. Other families re-used names of deceased children, but usually there were not as many children as there was in this case. Some individuals will name children after previous spouses who died during the marriage. That may seem a little bit unusual today, but there was a time when it was not unheard of. And my genealogy software program thought I was nuts to have a family with four children with the same name. But it can happen.
An image posted yesterday on our Facebook page was from a guardianship case in Illinois in the 1880s. In the US guardianships are generally local court records. The name of the court responsible for overseeing these cases will vary from state to state–because state statute oversees the structure of the guardianship process. These records are usually guardianships for the estate of the child (property/money in which they had an interest)–not the physical custody of the child. During some time periods and places, the estate in which the child had an interest needed to have at least a certain value. The bond a guardian posted may have been in direct relationship to the value of the estate that was being overseen. Please keep in mind these are some generalizations […]
Think about the assumptions you make about life in the 19th or early 20th century? Are you certain it is true? We often make assunptions about cultural practices, legal practices, church practices, etc. Those assumptions can impact our research–negatively if we are not careful. Do some research. Research does not necessarily mean getting an answer from a random person on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
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