-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Caldwell <rjc2934(a)is.nyu.edu>
To: CALDWELL-L(a)rootsweb.com <CALDWELL-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Date: Saturday, October 31, 1998 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: [CALDWELL-L] Fwd: Caldwells of New England
I'm starting to think that the Alexander Caldwell line might be connected
to the 3 brothers James, William, and Joseph lines of NE MA/ S NH, although
it was thought that the latter family came over slightly earlier
<SNIP>
Maybe they just weren't very creative with naming children. But,
I find it
awfully coincidental that there would be two different Caldwell families
living right next to each other (adjacent towns) in NH and naming their
children similarly.
If I'm not mistaken, the Caldwells were lowland Scots who settled in Ulster
and became what is known as Scotch-Irish when they immigrated here. The
Scots traditionaly named their first son after his paternal grandfather and
the first daughter after her maternal grandmother. So there were a lot of
male first cousins with exactly the same name. It didn't stop there; there
was more to their naming tradition which I believe involved the next
generation back.
Jerry Crumly