What’s in a Name? Apparently… Everything and Nothing at the Same Time

How Early Records Turn Perfectly Good Names Into Chaos

One of the great lies of genealogy is the idea that names are stable. We tend to approach records assuming a person has one name, spelled one way, used consistently, and recorded faithfully by every clerk, minister, and courthouse employee they ever encountered.

That illusion usually lasts right up until the first deed, census, or court record proves otherwise.

Lately, I’ve been living in name confusion. Not dramatic, soap-opera confusion…just the slow, grinding realization that early records treat names far more casually than modern researchers would like. And when you are trying to reconstruct families, children, and relationships, that casualness can feel personal.

Take Joel Webb.

Joel… or Joseph?

Most records I’ve found refer to my ancestor as Joel Webb. That’s the name that appears again and again, the one that fits the timeline, the geography, and the family cluster. And then there is one deed that calmly drops this phrase like it’s no big deal at all: “Joseph Webb, otherwise called Joel Webb.”

Otherwise called.

No explanation. No apology. No clarification. Just… there it is.

Naturally, this raises questions. Is Joel short for Joseph? Was Joseph his formal name and Joel his everyday name? Are there actually two men here who I’m accidentally merging? And to make matters worse, I’ve found other records for a Joseph Webb living in the same place and time Joel should be living.

So which is it?

Which is it? The name tag or everything else?

Here’s the thing that record-heavy genealogy teaches you very quickly: one record does not get to overrule all the others just because it sounds official. But it also does not get ignored.

When a contemporary document explicitly states “otherwise called,” that tells me something important. At least one clerk or witness believed those two names referred to the same man at that moment in time. That doesn’t prove Joel always used Joseph, or that Joseph was his birth name, or that every Joseph Webb in the county was secretly Joel. But it does carry weight.

What I do not do is panic and rename him across my entire tree based on a single record. Majority usage matters. Context matters. And sometimes the most accurate conclusion is not certainty, but caution.

Then there’s the sibling problem.

John… and Jonathan.

Another layer of confusion comes when looking at Joel’s children. Did he name one son John and another son Jonathan? Could those be the same person? Or is this just another case of clerks being creative?

Here’s where modern instincts can get us into trouble.

To us, John and Jonathan feel very close. Practically interchangeable. Surely a family wouldn’t use both, right?

Except… they absolutely did.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, John and Jonathan were understood as distinct names. They show up side by side in families all the time. Parents didn’t worry about confusion the way we do. Communities knew who was who. Clerks usually knew who they were writing about. And when confusion does happen, it’s often the record keeper’s fault, not the family’s.

So no, the presence of both names does not automatically mean duplication. It means I need to look for overlapping lives… shared land, shared wives, shared timelines. Names alone are not enough to collapse identities.

And just when you think you’ve sorted the men out, the women enter the picture.

Nancy… Nanny… or Fanny?

Joel’s wife may have been named Nancy. Or Nanny. Or Fanny.

Or maybe she was Frances and everyone just did what they felt like that day.

Nancy and Nanny are often interchangeable in records. Fanny can be a nickname for Frances, but it also sometimes appears when clerks hear something vaguely familiar and write what they think makes sense. Add in handwriting quirks, dialects, and the unfortunate reality that women appear less often in records, and suddenly you’re left squinting at spellings and wondering if you’re chasing three women or one.

This is where genealogy stops being about finding answers and starts being about evaluating evidence.

What I’ve learned (the hard way)

Here’s the approach I keep coming back to when names start misbehaving:

Most records matter more than one record, but one record can still matter.
Explicit statements like “otherwise called” deserve attention.
Names are clues, not conclusions.
People are identified by patterns of place, family, associates, and behavior… not spelling.
And sometimes the most honest thing a researcher can say is “this remains unresolved.”

It’s frustrating. It’s messy. And it’s also exactly what real historical research looks like.

So if you’re feeling confused because your ancestor seems to have gone by two names, or named children too similarly, or married someone whose name changes depending on who’s holding the pen… you’re not doing it wrong. You’re doing it accurately.

Names, it turns out, are both everything and not nearly enough.

Source:

Patrick Hanks, Kate Hardcastle, and Flavia Hodges, A Dictionary of First Names (Oxford University Press).

This is one of the standard academic references for English given names. It treats John and Jonathan as separate entries, with distinct histories and usage patterns in English-speaking societies. 

Joel Webb in Illinois: Following a Father and Son Through Land Records

A father, a son, and a forty-acre trail west

Why this post? This post continues my ongoing use of land deeds as a primary tool for tracing family history, particularly during periods when other records are sparse or silent. By examining two related deeds from Adams County, Illinois, I seek to document the continued life of my ancestor Joel Webb into the 1840s and to better understand how land transactions reveal patterns of family migration, settlement, and generational transition as the Webb family moved westward.

One of the most reliable ways to trace families during periods of migration is through land records. Deeds often capture moments of transition, revealing not only where people lived, but how families moved together and supported one another. Two related land deeds recorded in Adams County, Illinois, provide an important snapshot of my ancestor Joel Webb and his son John Webb during the early 1840s and help clarify when Joel was still living and where the family was settling before their later move west.

These deeds do not stand alone. When read alongside independently established family relationships, they become key pieces of evidence for understanding the Webb family’s presence in Illinois and the timing of their migration.

A Land Transfer from Joel Webb to His Son

Interpretive view of Adams County, Illinois, near the Mississippi River, c. 1840s.

On 18 July 1840, Joel Webb and his wife Susan Webb executed a warranty deed conveying land in Adams County, Illinois, to John Webb. At the time of the transaction, Joel and Susan were residing in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, while John Webb was already living in Adams County. The land conveyed was the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 16, Township 3 South, Range 5 West.

The deed identifies Susan as Joel Webb’s wife and includes her separate acknowledgment, a standard legal safeguard confirming her voluntary participation in the conveyance. This transaction places Joel Webb alive and active in Illinois in mid-1840 and shows him transferring property to John Webb at a point when John was already established in Adams County.

The Same Land, Sold Three Years Later

Just over three years later, on 2 August 1843, John Webb and his wife Elizabeth Webb conveyed the same parcel of land to B. L. Frame, also of Adams County. Elizabeth Webb executed her own separate acknowledgment, confirming her role in the transaction and documenting her identity as John Webb’s wife.

The legal description in this deed is identical to the one used in the 1840 conveyance, establishing a clear and uninterrupted chain of title from Joel Webb to John Webb and then to a third party. Together, these deeds trace the full life cycle of this particular landholding within a short window of time.

Correlating the Deeds with Family Relationships

Independent evidence identifies John Webb as the son of Joel Webb and identifies Elizabeth Chappell as John Webb’s wife. When these known relationships are correlated with the Adams County deeds, the transactions align closely with a father-to-son transfer of land during a period of family migration and settlement.

The timing, marital pairings, stated residences, and sequential ownership all fit naturally within the known structure of the Webb family. Joel Webb appears in Illinois at a time consistent with later-life movement alongside adult children, while John Webb was already positioned in Adams County before selling the land and eventually moving on to Missouri.

What These Deeds Tell Us About the Webb Family

Together, these records confirm that Joel Webb was still living in the early 1840s and had migrated to Illinois in proximity to his son John Webb, and possibly other children. They also demonstrate how land transactions can serve as durable markers of family movement, settlement, and generational transition during a period when many Americans were moving westward.

For the Webb family, these two deeds anchor Joel Webb firmly in Illinois and provide a documentary bridge between earlier family history and the later move to Missouri.

Sources

Adams County, Illinois, Deed Records, Joel Webb and wife Susan Webb to John Webb, 18 July 1840; recorded 1 November 1847; images, FamilySearch, Image Group Number 008547722.

Adams County, Illinois, Deed Records, John Webb and wife Elizabeth Webb to B. L. Frame, 2 August 1843; images, FamilySearch, Image Group Number 008547722.

Why Land Records Matter More Than You Think in Early Family History Research

Click on image to enlarge

When Deeds Do the Work Birth Records Cannot

Why this post? My goal is to explain how land transactions, often overlooked, can provide critical evidence for family relationships when traditional vital records do not exist.

A man or woman sells land. A man or woman buys land. On the surface, land transactions such as deeds, conveyances, and releases often appear to add nothing beyond time and place. There is no family narrative, no list of children, no tidy summary of relationships. But time and place are not nothing. They anchor a person in a specific legal and social moment, and that anchor matters more than it first appears.

The value of land records often emerges not from a single document, but from accumulation. One deed may tell you that a man was present in a county in 1838. Another shows that he was still there in 1845. A later transaction records that he sold land “with his wife Elizabeth relinquishing her right of dower.” Taken together, these records establish continuity, reveal a spouse’s given name, and place the marriage before a certain date. What once looked like an anonymous census household now resolves into real people living real lives, not just age marks in a tally column.

This is especially important when working with early federal censuses. The 1840 census, for example, tells us that a man had a wife and children, but it names none of them. A deed that includes the wife’s first name does not, by itself, prove parentage. But it sharply reduces ambiguity. It helps rule out alternate spouses, confirms that records across decades refer to the same individual, and distinguishes between men of the same name living in the same region.

Most land records stop there. They provide context rather than conclusions. And that is the norm. Researchers should expect that most deeds will not “solve” a family. Still, dismissing them for that reason misses their cumulative power.

Occasionally, however, a land record does far more.

An 1797 deed from Chesterfield County, Virginia, documents the sale of land once owned by Collins Gooding. The transaction names his widow, Francis Gooding, identifies his sons David, Solomon, Jesse, and Collins Gooding, and explicitly states that Nancy, wife of William Chappell, was his daughter. It also notes that William and Nancy were residing in Kentucky at the time. In a single legal instrument, the document establishes death, widowhood, parent-child relationships, marriage, and migration.

This is not inference. It is direct language compelled by law and necessity. The land could not be sold without identifying the parties who held legal interest in it, and those interests arose from family relationships. The deed does not tell a story. It performs a transaction. Yet in doing so, it preserves family structure with a clarity that many other record types never reach.

That contrast is worth emphasizing. Most land records quietly do foundational work. A few provide explicit proof. Both matter. When birth records do not exist and probate files are thin or missing, land records often carry far more genealogical weight than they are given credit for.

A practical recommendation

For researchers working in periods before consistent birth and marriage records, land transactions should be part of the standard search, not a last resort. This does not mean reading every deed in a county. It means asking a few focused questions and following the paper trail deliberately.

• Start by identifying where your ancestor lived and when. Land records are county-based, so jurisdiction matters. If a census, tax list, or court record places a person in a county, that is your entry point.
• Search both sides of the transaction. Look not only for purchases, but for sales. A man who disappears from tax lists or census schedules often appears one last time selling land. That sale may include a spouse, a dower release, or multiple heirs acting together.
• Track land over time, not just once. One deed rarely tells the whole story. Multiple transactions can establish residence windows, confirm continuity, and reveal life events such as marriage, death, or migration.
• Read deeds for who is named and who is not. Pay attention to spouses, joint sellers, out-of-state heirs, and widows. Absences can matter as much as presences.
• Do not skip the surrounding names. Neighbors, witnesses, and adjoining landowners often recur across records and can help confirm identity in areas where surnames repeat.
• Finally, read the document itself. Indexes are helpful, but they strip away the very details that give land records their value. The relationships you are looking for often appear in a single clause that never makes it into an abstract.

Land records will not always hand you a family tree. Most of the time, they quietly supply context, continuity, and constraint. Occasionally, they do much more. Either way, they deserve a place at the table in serious genealogical research.

Source

Chesterfield County, Virginia. Deed Book 14, pp. 189-190. Deed from heirs of Collins Gooding to Thomas Branch, dated 30 November 1797; recorded December Court 1797. Chesterfield County Courthouse, Chesterfield, Virginia.