While taking her husband's last name in marriage, the woman's maiden name (her father's last name) becomes her middle name. That's a good thing, as I think Peter Sutherland used to say, and probably Grandfather Arthur Sutherland too. Makes family research easier.
But we don't carry the mother's maiden name down.
Reeders and Reeds Come Together
Diana Elvira Park was the of a Mr. Park and Martha A. Reed.
Diana Elvira Park. Effectively Diana is both a "Park" and a "Reed," if we counted the mother's last name as much as the father's. So part of the Park lineage, and the Reed lineage.
When Diana marries a Reeder, grandmother "Mami" Kathleen's maiden name, Kathleen .... Reeder, her name becomes Diana Park Reeder.
She keeps her father's last name Park, and her new husband's last name Reeder.
What she loses, and what people won't know, as I've seen and will tell you about, is her mother's family name. You lose sight of the fact that Diana's mother was a Reed, Martha A. Reed.
Then there's the Dickinson example with Charles Dickinson Adams a great great uncle of mine.
The Amherst Dickinsons Connection
Charles Dickinson Adams. My great great uncle on the Adams side of the family.
Charles Dickinson Adams of Amherst and New York, is invited to speak at a Dickinson Family Reunion as an "honorary Dickinson."
He tells the story in a speech saved in the reunion record that his Dickinson name was chosen after a prominent lawyer in the state {check detail}.
Charles continues the story that we were almost Dickinsons but his grandfather's marriage to a Dickinson did not bear children.
Sara Ann Dickinson was Asa Adams I's first wife. But as far as I'm able to tell on the tree, there isn't a connection between Sara Ann Dickinson's lineage and Mary Dickinson's lineage.
- Asa Adams I marries Sara Ann Dickinson, but no children. He marries again.
- His son Asa Adams II marries a Clarissa Eastman, whose mother was Mary Dickinson. She was part of the Eastman AND the Dickinson families.
- Asa II's son Nathaniel Dickinson Adams marries Harriet Hastings
- Nathaniel's first son, Charles Dickinson Adams, marries Mary Clark Wood
Mary Dickinson was Emily Dickinson's great grandfather's sister, a great aunt. Nathan Dickinson Jr. and Mary Dickinson were siblings.
In this instance especially, merely two generations later, the family has lost track of the fact that the Dickinson in their names: Nathaniel Dickinson Adams and his son's Charles Dickinson Adams came from Mary Dickinson Eastman's, Clarissa Eastman's mother.
Author Note:
It's very hard to write about this material clearly. This is the third time I've rewritten this, and I know it's still not perfectly clear, and it needs to be if people are to read and remember it. 14 Aug 2017
