[Granville-Hough] 16 Mar 2009 - SR,JR,III, when used

[Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough]

USAGE OF SENIOR, JUNIOR, AND III AND OTHER GENEALOGICAL QUANDRIES

What does Sr, Jr, III, etc after a name mean? People who are new 
to genealogy and to legal practices of previous generations frequently 
do not realize that customs change. Let us take the problem of census 
records in Sullivan’s Hollow and the two John Franklin Cole families. 
They are shown as John Franklin Cole, Sr, and John Franklin Cole, Jr. 
Did that mean they were father and son? Absolutely not!! It just meant 
there were two John Franklin Cole families in Beat 3, Smith County, and 
one was older than the other. John Franklin Cole, Sr lived near Bunker 
Hill for many years, then moved to Covington County. John Franklin Cole, 
Jr, was son of Mark Cole, (who was son of Mark Cole but the elder had 
deceased or stayed in Pike County.) So John Franklin Cole, Jr was nephew 
of John Franklin Cole, Sr, and lived near Bunker Hill until he md and 
moved to the Shady Grove Community. In their cases, there were no more 
John Franklin Coles, so they just kept their Sr and Jr designations.
In another case I studied in Loudoun County, VA, there was a Samuel 
Hough, Sr, Samuel Hough, Jr, and Samuel Hough, III, all shown in county 
records. When Samuel Hough, Sr, died, the other two each moved up a 
notch to become Samuel Hough, Sr, and Samuel Hough, Jr, in the county 
records. So, to keep them straight and separated, you had to know which 
years were involved. To further confuse matters, one of the latter two 
had land which extended into Faquier County, where he was the only 
Samuel Hough on record, so his land there was recorded under plain 
Samuel Hough. So you had one body of land owned by one person, but it 
was described as being under Samuel Hough, Samuel Hough, Jr, and Samuel 
Hough III. When this Samuel Hough moved to Texas, he was the only Hough 
in his county so he was just plain Samuel. .The John Franklin Coles were 
smarter: once they were recorded as Sr and Jr, they just kept it that way.
This is a very pertinent discussion to the problem of Thomas Sullivans 
in the Tombigbee District in the years 1790 to 1820. Who is Thomas 
Sullivan, Sr, Thomas Sullivan, Jr, and just plain Thomas Sullivan? I 
have not studied all the records there and cannot give a judgement, 
except to say, EMPHATICALLY, that the designations of Sr and Jr in that 
era did not mean father and son. It just meant older and younger AT THE 
TIME of the record being made. It did not preclude father and son, of 
course; but other records would have to be studied to prove it. In the 
Tombigee case, I think it will take all the known records to come up 
with an educated guess about the relationships.

The "Smith County Trumpet," Winter, 2009, also mentions the terms niece, 
nephew, and cousin, and how they are found in English and early American 
wills, probate records and in town records. "Cousin" was a catch-all 
term which sometimes included relatives by marriage as well as by blood. 
I believe I have found it used when grand-niece or grand-nephew would be 
the present day term.

Nephew and niece also had different uses. Nephew might be used instead 
of grandson or cousin or it could be simply a descendant of someone, say 
a neighbor mentioned in a will. Niece had a rather general usage of 
someone who was a female relative of some degree. I have seen that usage.
What I have never seen, but is supposed to exist, is the use of niece to 
indicate an illegitimate daughter of a clergyman. (Clergymen did provide 
solace and comfort to widows, especially the younger, good-looking ones. 
When I learned about this usage, I recalled the comments of the Tom-Cat 
Salesman sitting on the garden post observing the young cat mother with 
her bevy of new kittens. He said: "If you wanna get results, you gotta 
make calls!"