Uxornecronyms: A Little-Known Naming Practice
In his slim and excellent volume, The Name Is the Game: Onomatology and the Genealogist, NGS Fellow Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck coins the term uxornecronym: “the name of the first daughter born unto a second wife honoring the name of the first wife, who had died.”[1] The word combines the Latin term uxor (wife), the Greek term necro (death), and the Greek term nym or onym (name or word).
Wait. What?! Is that really a thing? And could it possibly be useful in solving any genealogical problem?
In his 1876 will, Hartley White of Cooper County, Missouri, left his estate “both personal and real” to his wife Nancy White. After her death, however, he willed any property that may be left by her to his “legal heirs[,] the children of my own body hereafter named.” The first child he named was Aury Baxter, wife of Edward [sic; Edmund] Baxter.[2]
Decades earlier and in another state, Charles Clay and Orrey Townsend were married in 1807 in Madison County, Kentucky.[3] Their one known child, Martha Ryan Clay, was born in 1815. Whether Charles and Orrey divorced or whether Charles died young, Ora Clay married her second husband, Hartley White, in 1821, also in Madison County.[4]
By 1830, the Whites had migrated to Cooper County, Missouri, where they were enumerated in the federal census. Though Hartley is the only one named, both Ora and her daughter Martha are accounted for as females aged 30–39 and 10–14.[5] Whether Hartley and Ora divorced or whether Ora died shortly thereafter, Hartley married his second wife, Nancy Estes, in 1833, also in Cooper County.[6]
The fact that Aury was the first child of Hartley and Nancy (Estes) White is suggested by the order of names in her father’s 1876 will, above. Her birth order is confirmed with the 1850 census in which Aury Baxter was 16 [born about 1834, a year after Hartley White and Nancy Estes’s marriage], and she and Edmund Baxter had been married within the year.[7]
In this case, the use of an uxornecronym solved two problems. First, it helped clarify the first Ora Townsend’s name, which has been spelled differently in nearly every record. Further complicating matters, indexers have had a field day trying to determine what that big loop followed by a few short strokes was intended to represent. Her name has been presented as Aura, Aury, Awry, Ora, Orra, Orrey, Oney, Onia, Amy, and Anna. Aury (White) Baxter’s name was much more consistently represented over her lifetime, confirming the fact that the name is Ora/Aura, regardless of spelling; not Onia/Oney, Amy, or Anna.
Further, though no divorce or death record has been found for Ora (Townsend) (Clay) White, Hartley White’s use of an uxornecronym for his first daughter with his second wife confirms Ora’s death between 1830 and 1833.
Going back to my original questions: Is that really a thing? And could it possibly be useful in solving any genealogical problem? The answers are “yes” and “yes.”
[1] Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck, The Name is the Game: Onomatology and the Genealogist (Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2013), 25–26.
[2] Hartley White will, 17 January 1876, Cooper County, Missouri, Record of Wills, volume B2, 1870–1894, 145–146.
[3] Clay-Townsend marriage bond, 3 June 1807, Madison County, Kentucky, marriage bonds, file 6, 1807–1808 (FHL #183,305, item 2), unpaginated, loose bonds in no apparent order; images from file 6 are not included in FamilySearch’s online collection. Also, Annie W. Burns Bell, compiler, Madison County, Kentucky, Marriages, 1785–1851, an unpublished typescript dated 1934 (FHL bound volume 976.953 V25b). Bell mistranscibes her name as Oney and the month as January. The general index to Madison County marriages (FHL #1,943,390) does not include this marriage, nor does Madison County, Kentucky, record of marriages, vol. 1, 1792–1843 (FHL #183, 302).
[4] White-Clay marriage bond, 4 January 1821, Madison County, Kentucky, marriage bonds, file 12, 1819–1821 (FHL #4,542,889), unpaginated, alphabetical by surname, image 924 of 1025 at FamilySearch.
[5] Hartley White household, 1830 U.S. Census, Cooper County, Missouri, page 216, line 7 (NARA M19, roll 73); 1 male 15–19, 1 male 30–39, 1 female 10–14, 1 female 30–39.
[6] White-Estes marriage, 31 March 1833, Cooper County, Missouri, marriage certificates book B (FHL #902782), 1.
[7] Edmund Baxter household, 1850 U.S. Census, Cooper County, Missouri, District 23, page 315 (stamped 157), lines 26–27 (NARA M432, roll 397).
About Author
Aaron Goodwin
Aaron is a genealogist and house historian specializing in New York City research across all time periods, from the Dutch colonial era to the 20th century. His book, New York City Municipal Archives: An Authorized Guide for Family Historians, won the National Genealogical Society’s 2017 Award for Excellence: Genealogical Methods and Sources. He is also editor of NGS Monthly, former contributing editor of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, and former editor of the Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine. In 2011, he received the American Society of Genealogists’ Scholar Award.
I’ve seen this phenomenon several times and used it as a help in finding the names of first wives. Thank you for writing about it.
Here is a related story showing how I deduced the probable name of an unknown wife. John Webb (will probated 1736, Henrico Co., Va.) is shown to be a son-in-law of Theodorick and Elizabeth Carter. (Will of Elizabeth Carter, made 1747, probated 1751, Henrico Co., names her grandson Cuthbert Webb. Cuthbert is shown as the youngest child in John Webb’s will.) John Webb’s wife’s given name is unknown, has not been found in any document. She apparently died before 1736. Her son Cuthbert Webb’s oldest daughter is named Hannah (b. 1756, m. William Tooley, Bible record at NSDAR). Theodorick Carter’s mother was also named Hannah (wife of Giles Carter). Based on the estimated birthdates for the Webb children (c. 1714-c. 1733), Mrs. Webb was probably born c. 1690-95, making her likely the eldest daughter of Theodorick and Elizabeth Carter. Since none of her sisters is named Hannah, and Hannah is the name Theodorick should have used first, the unknown name is probably Hannah. That an eldest granddaughter is also named Hannah makes that conclusion virtually certain.
This is not uncommon flipped the other way round. I’ve run into this a few times in England. Example: In Southampton, Elizabeth Ashford and her second husband, Joseph Peirce, gave their son, Joseph Spurrier Peirce, his second name after her first husband, Richard Spurrier.
Have noticed when this happens with boys, the previous husband’s family may have been a bit higher in social standing or money or both.
The somewhat uncommon “Spurrier” name helped to fill in quite a few pieces of Joseph Spurrier Peirce’s ancestors and make connections between three families.
I have seen this in my Dutch research too. When talking about naming patterns in my lectures, I always tell the audience not only to look for (grand)parents but also for deceased spouses. It is a great help to find the link between first and second marriages. The term ‘uxornecronym’ is absolutely a new one to me.
I’ve seen this in several of my New England > New York > Michigan lines, honoring deceased spouses of both genders.