[Granville-Hough] 7 Jan 2010 - Usage of Senior, Junior, and III

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:07:53 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: SrJrIII, 7 Jan 2010

  USAGE OF SENIOR, JUNIOR, AND III

(GWH). 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 SullivanÆs 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, 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, and 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. 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. Grandpa (aka Granville) 
Hough.