🚀 go-pugleaf

Vick Bennison brought up a German research point that interested me.

>Many old German
>baptismal records for example show children with multiple names.  A common
>example might be:
>
>    Johan Christian Lupp
>    Johan Martin Lupp
>    Anna Catherina Lupp
>    Anna Maria Lupp
>
>Where these are all children born in the same family.  Generally these people
>would never again use the "first" name, but would go by Christian, Martin,
>Catherine and Maria.  

A German immigrant ancestor of mine went by Heinrich Johan Mesenbrink,
but I was very surprised to find a German baptismal certificate (Luth.)
in his Civil War Pension file stating his name as
Diedrich Konrad Heinrich Mesenbrink.

From what Vick said, I understand now why "Heinrich" was used,
but I don't know why he didn't ever use either of the first two
names. And where did he get "Johan"?

If I hadn't found this in his pension file, I would not have
recognized these people as the same person. (And I'm still not
sure they are.)

Bob Mesenbrink
Denver, CO