This week's #52Ancestors Prompt is FAVORITE NAMES.
I have some favorite names that I'm researching, but a couple are unusual and interesting and always make me smile.
The first is Cinderella Breedlove, my friend Sharon's 3rd great-grandmother. I always wonder where her first name really came from. I've seen a photograph that is supposedly her; she looks like a prim, unsmiling woman. But the name is just fun.
Cinderella Breedlove was born in March of 1800, likely in Albemarle County, Virginia. She was the fourth child of Martin and Elizabeth (Carr) Breedlove. Except for her sister Permilia, all the other siblings had common names, such as John, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Thomas. So what made her parents come up with the name of Cinderella, which is often spelled with an S?
Cinderella married in 1820 in Warren County, Kentucky, to Thomas Richard Lowry. The family moved around 1829 to Lebanon, Laclede County, Missouri, where they remained. Cinderella died on 22 April 1858 in Laclede County and is buried in the Old Bolles Cemetery. She and Thomas had twelve children, all of whom were given common names.
Another name I like is Clinkenbeard. This surname is found in both my friend Sharon's family and my daughter-in-law's family. And it turns out they are related. The name is sometimes spelled Clinkingbeard, which always conjures up a picture of an old man with a long beard.
In my family, there aren't any favorite last names, but I do have various aunts with interesting (yet typical for the time) first names. There is America, Tennessee, and Missouri. There are many in my family, like others, who are named after political and military persons. I have a Henry Clay Rains and a Winfield Scott McClerran. There are some named after notable figures such as Lorenzo Dow, George Washington, and Andrew Jackson, among many others. Learning something about the names sometimes gives me an idea of how the family leaned politically! But I still can't figure out where Cinderella came from.
