General Chat

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When a lineage comes to an end in your tree? My Grandfather had a brother James and when my GGrandmother re married she went on to have 4 more children with her new husband.
On and off I have been researching my GUncle James for 7 years, he did marry and only had 1 daughter, I now know that his daughter never married so that line or branch of family is now finished.
Its almost the same as my own, my sisters and I have gone on to have children and grandchildren, however we were all girls I have no brothers so in a way our own line had now finished as our maiden name will not be carried on.

Same with mine, Hayley, but I have second cousins carrying the name on. Sad that none of my grandfather's sons had sons, though.

It is sad. I agree. I note in some wealthy families that the last of the line offered money to a male relative to change his surname from JONES to ECKLETHWISTLE just to keep surname going.

However, I also think it is important for us to remember the lives of those maiden aunts and others who are last of a line. It is their lives that are important, what they gave to future generations. And they often had very interesting and pathfinding lives, and we can be proud of them on the outer fringes of our trees. I have one who....

No, not for this thread. Perhaps what our tail end Charlies and Charlottes achieved in their lives is for another thread :-)

I am one of three girls, we are all married but only eldest has offspring. Middle sister and I have kept our maiden names. Dad had a brother, he had 2 daughters, so the male line has ended :-(

It does seem sad, doesn't it?

If I'd started FH before the children were born, I might have incorporated my maiden name with theirs, or even double barreled it with OH's on marriage. Mind you, his mum might have objected!

Like you, I've various male 2nd cousins who also have sons so those lines will carry my maiden name, but it's not quite the same?

Someone we knew a long time ago changed his name to his wife's maiden name. Apparently it was a well known one in the Circus world. (Their generation wasn't involved)

We have been a male dominated society. Girls have had less rights than boys. Trees are dominated by a fixation with the male line and the other side of our families is dismissed as the distaff side.

With smaller and strangely shaped coats of arms.

Sisters and brothers, genealogy is the one of the last bastions of male supremacy (in the western world, anyway). Let us rise up and treat the women on our trees as equal to the men. After all, they probably were at least equal :-)

I have followed the male line in one side and female in another, I am sure I read on here once that most follow female lines as these are often guaranteed to be the most honest lineage. Nothing to do with equality ;-)

My great grandparents had 5 girls and 5 boys.
Obviously when the 4 surviving girls married they took their husband's name.
Of the boys:
A 1. died in infancy
A 2. was special needs and never married
J. had 2 girls
E. was killed during WWII. His wife was pregnant and gave birth to a stillborn girl
L. - the youngest boy - had a son - whose partner is another man! :-D

My daughter has 3 children - the eldest girl and elder boy have her maiden name incorporated into their names.

:-D

There is no way I could have double barrelled my maiden name..lololoolol It would make me sound like WWF pro wrestler :-D :-D :-D

my son's wife hasnt taken my sons name. :-D

Of course I have many many cousins that now have sons who have sons so we are not going to be extinct ;-)

My great granddad's line has definitely disappeared - g granddad was one of 2 - he had a sister.
Having said that - I've a strong feeling g granddad's father and his brother took their stepfather's name anyway. :-(

my line dies out with me.. it is a strange feeling i didn't know anything at all about my rellies until i traced my family tree and now i know i am the last one to be born in that line and have that surname.. :-(

That could of been me who said that Hayley.

When I went to night school, to do a course on genealogy, the tutor said that although most people followed the male line, it was the female side that was often more accurate, as in most cases we knew more or less for certain, who the mother who had the baby, but not the father, way back that was only who the mother said he was, no DNA then, and that 's logical to me.

I have always followed both my male and female lines, long before I went to classes, as it made sense to me that the female side is as important as the male.

As for carrying on a name, all the surnames of my ancestors I think of as part of me, I feel as much a part of my Mums maiden name for instance, as I do my Dads, as I do the rest my ancestors surnames.

So to me it doesn't matter if there aren't any boys to carry on a surname, I know loads of my gggggggggggggg grandparents surnames, , I may not use there names, but they are all a part of me, we're just one big happy family really :-D

All the girls in my tree have married and the boys were the sons of other daughters.

And when I married the Simpson name in our family disappeared completely.

I have always felt sad about this. Long before I even considered doing family history, I understood about the loss of our branch of this surname.

I had never seen a "wheel" tree till I saw something in a Sunday supplement in 1981. It was Lady Di and it showed all her 128 ggggg grandparents on the outer ring - where they came from, what they did etc.

I thought it was quite fascinating and gave a real picture of someone's roots. And I set out there and then to do the same thing for my first (as yet unborn) child. That little foetus is now 31, 9 years a school teacher and planning to start her own family soon:-D

I am nowhere near getting all the 128 ancestors that she has (126 as cousins married about 1820 in one line), but I have all 32 ggg grandparents and almost all 64 gggg grandparents now.

Biological v legal fathers? I favour legal fathers on trees, just noting when we know biological father is or may be a different man.

Of course going off track a bit here, but with Christen names I have noticed that all children on both sides of my family tree were named after uncles and Aunts this is through at least 5 generations, even my own son has my Dads name as his middle name. As does one of my nephews ( I did it first I may add) so I have carried this on, all though at the timeI didnt know this I just wanted to. The same for occupations for 4 generations most of the man had the same until my Grandfathe,r I think this is more to do with the times as Hatters where by then a dying trade. Because of the WW 1 & 2 introduced Military careers, again carrying on to my own son all the same regiment, all though this is evident about 2 gens back from my Grandfather but only 1 GGrandfather.

I am one of three girls to my dad and so no-one to carry on the surname.

I have a 1st cousin(married) that has the surname but can't pass it on as he has no children..
So I am seriously thinking of going back to my maiden name.

I would have to research my cousins more as I am almost sure that most of them had girls..

My son, so far unmarried and no children, is the last with our surname. My husband was the last until our son was born. I have three sister in laws, their father was also an only son with three sisters. So the lone boy in the family has carried the name. So our son had better get on with it! :-D

On my side, I have a sister, no children and she has taken her husband's name. So our maiden name died along with my father.

So sad. I did, in a flight of fancy, think of double barrelling our names, but it was such a mouthful!

:-)

MY DAD AND HIS BROTHER WERE THE LAST TWO MALES
MY UNCLE HAD NO CHILDREN,
MY DAD JUST HAD ME,AND THE SURNAME HAS GONE,,
ITS SAD

My Dad's branch of the family will die out when my male cousins die - they are the only ones left with the surname, and neither have male children.

Sadly, I'm the last of my line so that's a branch closed.

One of my male colleagues who married a couple of years ago changed his surname on marriage to that of his wife so that her line didn't die out.