Tracing a Name

Fun with family history time now!

Laura has a relative (the brother of her great great grandfather) who did some fun little land dealing in Arizona. Basically, the idea was that he had some fraudulent documents (that I think he knew were fake) that said he owned a huge swath of the state, but the government saw through it. Yet another example of hardworking Americans being kept down by The Man! There are actually a number of books on this (Laura is reading two of them) and it is vastly fascinating. It is a shame that we didn’t really know about this when we were actually, you know, living in Arizona.

James Addison Reavis, however, wasn’t a direct ancestor of Laura; His father, Fenton Goss Reavis, also had a son named Alexander Hamilton Reavis (Laura’s ancestor). He, in turn, had a daughter named Mattie Ola Reavis, who then had a daughter named Barabara Ebinger.

Barbara Ebinger is Laura Grandmother, so we are getting to modern times now, with Laura’s father, born Brian George Orr, the last link in the line until we get to Laura.

Going straight down a single line is interesting for many reasons: it is a bit easier just going down one line (since the ancestors exponentially increase with each generation), we get to see the names as they change from different time periods, and we can see the changing of last names over time, from Reavis to Ebinger to Orr (then McCaughey) to Orsetti. We can also trace the lineage of the name of our newest child.

Fenton Goss Orsetti shares the same first and middle name as his great great great great grandfather Fenton Goss Reavis. The name fits perfectly with our “not common whatsoever” demands while still sounding like a name. It has possibilities of nicknames and pet names (but only for us, you guys need to call him Fenton) and flows really well. Plus, it is an honest-to-goodness family name.

We had this name picked out from the beginning and there was no going back. Ezekiel was never an option, neither was Damon Jr. or Angelo.

One thing, though, I have to admit. Remember when Laura said we gave hints about the name in previous post? Yeah, she lied and I admitted as much. BUT, in that same post where I said we didn’t give any hints, I basically announced the name in a subtle way. Go back to that post and notice that it is broken into two paragraphs, with the first paragraph having six sentences and the second one have four. Now look at the first letter of each sentence of each paragraph.

Yeah, I thought I was clever doing that.