Jacob Hancock, born 1740 in West Haddon in Northamptonshire, England and died 30 years later in the same village. Jacob is my 5th Great Grandfather, and as I tried to work out who his children were, I started to realise a sadness that repeats throughout my family.
Jacob and his wife Rebeccah had five children – William (my fourth great grandfather), Elizabeth, Jacob, Jacob and Jacob. He was a shoemaker, an occupation he inherited from his father, and which Jacob’s children and grandchildren inherited the business. Jacob’s death shortly after the birth of his eldest child leaving his wife and three children in penury, and it would seem they spent a short time in a poor house. When Rebeccas sister, Mary Baucutt died, Rebeccah and her family inherited sufficient for them to live more comfortably.
As I was a genealogical newbie I was at first baffled. Were there three Jacob and Rebeccahs, who all had a son Jacob born close together? And then it hit me – the great sadness.
I discovered the couple’s children were:
- William Hancock – 1760-1841
- Elizabeth Hancock – 1761 to abt 1825
- Jacob Hancock – 1766-1766
- Jacob Hancock – 1767 – 1768
- Jacob Hancock – 1769 – 1834
Jacob 1 died shortly after he was born, Jacob 2 lived for about a year, and Jacob 3 survived into adulthood, married and had children.
What surprised me about this was not so much that the first two Jacobs, died so young, as I knew infant mortality was much higher in the 18th century, but the fact that each child had the same name – Jacob. In the twenty-first century, most parents who so sadly lose a very young child, preserve the name of that child and any subsequent children have other names. This keeps the lost child distinctive in the family history.
It turned out that as I meandered through my tree many couples who lost children before the 19th century, named the next child of the same sex with the name of the child they lost. I found this sad. Did the surviving Jacob cast away the memory of the loss of his siblings, or was it a way of keeping the name alive? I am not sure. Are you? What do you think?
