In a message dated 3/19/01 8:47:37 PM, FayMouse(a)aol.com writes:
<< Also my great grandmothers name on her tombstone is not the name she was
born with. No one in the family ever knew till I did the research on the
family and found them in the census. My mother grew up believing that she
was named after her grandmother. Now I have to find out who she was actually
named for, my daughter was named for her. >>
Why couldn't your mother be named after your grandmother -- as she was known
to her family, not on a piece of paper somewhere? I believe a person's name
is whatever s/he feels it is, as long as they are consistent. My
grandmother's first name on the tombstone is the one she was christened with,
and I cannot even reproduce it here since the keyboard does not include
Polish characters, a female form of Vladimir (I think); however, she was told
as a preschool child that she could translate this name into anything she
wanted (the family was going to be 100% American!), and she chose Laura. So
she was known as Laura almost all of her life, and my daughter is named Laura
after her.
:-)
Betty