Hogg Scrapbook Issue #1 - The Genealogist's Nightmare

Hogg Scrapbook Issue #1
from Janice Brooks-Headrick
12/26/2000

The Hogg Scrapbook is truly that: Pieces of newsprint pasted in an old
ledger. Mostly written by Robert Hogg, called "Gulch"who wrote for a
newspaper in the Broome Co,NY area. Some entries are author unknown.
Probably kept by Mina Hogg Brooks, it came to the home of Wilbur Brooks.

Mt. Ettrick, referred to below, was the family farm in Broome Co., NY.
It is now the Broome County Airport. The house was referred to as
"Carrie Hame" I'd love to know the origin of the name.

I made copies about 1993. The Scrapbook will be reproduced as well as
my spellcheck and I can make it. I would like to have feedback from any
kinfolk with more information. I would like to know what the original
newspaper was named, when it was printed, and who are these people?
Janice Brooks-Headrick

THE GENEALOGIST'S NIGHTMARE
Signed: H.K.G. about 1902

"The nine children in the family of the Robert Hogg who died in
mid-ocean were baptized William, Isabelle, Samuel, James, Margaret
Laidlaw, Robert, David, John Oliver and Elizabeth Oliver.

"The six children of his brother David's family were likewise named
William 2nd, Isabelle, Samuel 2nd, James 2nd, Margaret and Robert 2nd.

"Though not in the same order of age, they were otherwise identical in
name, except for the necessary attachment of 2nd. One cannot help
wishing there had been three more of David's household as they must
surely have been called David 2nd, John 2nd, and Elizabeth.

"There seems to have been and unwritten Scotch rule that the first boy
should be named after the father's family, the second after the mother's
and so on alternating each time. Also the first girl took a name from
the mother's side of the house and the second girl from her father's,
from which we guess that Grandmother Oliver's name was Isabelle and know
that Grandmother Laidlaw Hogg's was Margaret.

"Cousins like brither's, all were these, their father's brothers, their
mother's sisters and their grandparents all the same."

(Jan's note: Brothers David Hogg B.1883 married Helen Oliver: Robert
Hogg B.1776 m. Elizabeth Oliver. All children are double first
cousins. Then it gets complicated.)

"We know the oldest brother of the Robert who died on the way over to
have been named William - he and his brother James, Known as the Ettrick
Shepherd, remaining in the homeland, while Robert, and David essayed to
live here. (Jan: in the USA) There were only those four sons in the
family of Robert Hogg and Margaret Laidlaw, who is described as a woman
of superior energy and cultivated mind.

" You see, Robert Hogg (Gulch) is at least the third Robert Hogg in
succession. How much further back they go we have no means of knowing.

"The James' of course were named after their uncle, The Ettrick
Shepherd. We think Grandfather Oliver's name must have been Samuel.

"Again if a certain name was 'especially desired and the sex of the
child did not correspond, Robert could be easily changed to Roberta, and
William to Wilhelmina and James to Jemima to be nicknamed Jimsie.

"Now imagine the result of putting two sets of people with exactly the
same names on one small hill. There was Squire Willie and just below,
Lower Billie or Greene William, because he had lived at Greene (Jan: New
York). There was an Aunt Belle and a cousin Belle and an aunt Margaret
and a cousin Margaret, terms interchangeable according to the house you
happened to be in.

"Big Jim and Little Jim, a distinction of size, Little Jimmie since his
cousin's death, dropping the Arabic numeral 2nd and becoming James Hogg.

"There was carpenter Rob who was Bachelor Rob, and there was Canada Rob
who lived a mile toward the north. But the confusion of tongues began (
?) with the third generation in which were compounded all the same name
in the most hopeless fashion.

"In school, we had Robert David, Will Dave, Little Rob and Little Dave
and David Oliver Parker, Long Jim (the Deacon, James George (Geordie)
Samuel Oliver Hogg and Johnnie Paisley. There have been Roberts in five
of the families, two died in the war, one at home, one lives in
Missouri, Robert Crain in Binghamton and Robert Osterhout, Mass. There
are also a James and a George and a Maggie Belle in Missouri, and two
Maggie Belles on Mt. Ettrick and a Belle in Binghamton. There are five
Elizabeths and four Nellies. There are two Jeanies. Two Andrews (after
the Scotch minister Andrew Jardine) and four Willies have died, while at
least two Willies are living, and the fourth generation and the fifth
are repeating the same names in new combination with such other Scotch
names as Wallace, Bruce, Donald, Douglas, Shepherd and others.

"But deary me! We are lost in the labyrinth ourselves, and all tangled
up, for in Binghamton and down South and out West and down East there
must be young Williams and Roberts and Samuels and Isabelles and
Margarets whose names we have never even heard but whose pardon we
humbly ask for "omitting to mention" them.

"We beg, however to introduce a study little pair of Scotch twins who
are four years old and named Hugh Donald and Paul Douglas Green (Jan: B.
3-23-1898) also their brothers Cameron and Paisley Green. They are in
the line of aunt Belle Paisley who lived to know of, if not to see, her
great-grandchildren in five families.

" One fortunate fellow, Herman Hogg of Parkersburg found a girl named
Ellen Elizabeth Laffer, whom he did well to marry. Considering the Mt.
Ettrick names, is it any wonder that school-teachers grew desperate over
the problem of names and relationships on their roll books and among
their patrons?

" In one of the several delightful scrap-books we have seen was a letter
handsomely written in the stately style of 1834 addressed to William
Hogg and signed by James Oliver. It was dated at ?arlington, Greene
County and proved a puzzle in point of names. Whose letter was it Squire
William's or William 2nd's? We could easily tell by the context of
course. Yes, here he says, "Remember us to your brother Samuel." But
both Williams had a brother Samuel. We must look father. Here it is!
"Come out and bring your sisters, Margaret and Belle." O, dear! So had
they both two sisters Margaret and Belle! So we are left in doubt equal
to Frank Stockman's question of, The Lady of the Tiger. Which?

"In Scotland, every farm had a name, many of them ending in Hope, which
means glen. The map has such names as these: Sassa? de, Kirkmaiden,
Wigtown, Coatbridge, Bigger, Woodside, Stonehouse, ?altcoats, Motherwell
and Samlash.
H.K. G."

END QUOTATION

#1 THE Genealogist's Nightmare

 

 

 

Janice Brooks-Headrick is kindly sharing the writings in a scrapbook kept by her gr-grandmother Mina Hogg Brooks.

© Janice Brooks-Headrick 2000

 

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