One of my past time has been dabbling in genealogy and to my immediate family, I am the quasi family historian and thought I would relate an absolutely true, yet funny, anecdote on relaying family history to my oldest son.
Many years ago, when Jarrod was in 7th or 8th grade, he had a home work assignment to write a story about some member of his family that was at least grand parents or older. Naturally he came to me for his research and we had a discussion on the Clark Family Tree. I pulled out my charts and showed the Clark line back to Batt Peterson Clark Sr, around 1820 and his wife’s, Mary E Thweatt, back to 1630 and early VA. He asked me about the origin of Batt Peterson, and I explained that in that period of history, the family lineage was kept by the given names and that several families by the name of Batt, Peterson, Thweatt had a long migration history in which they stayed together. Batts’ mother was Rebbecca Peterson, and her mother was a Batt, thus the lineage name of Batt Peterson Clark. This lead to me explaining that my middle name is Berton, which, in the same tradition, is my grandmothers maiden name.
After a fairly long discussion on our family history, Jarrod stopped the conversation with a comment that took me by total surprise. He looked at me and said that he had just come up with the name for his first son. He thought that Batt was a cool name, and since it was family historical, he would want to keep it alive. Then in the tradition handed down to me by giving the grandmother’s maiden name, he would use my mother’s for the middle name.
That would make Jarrod’s first son’s name — Batt Mann Clark
An idle thought from a not so idle mind. . . .
