PolkaDot and Kid, very cool family history snippets there. Thank you for sharing.
YES! Great family stories. I hope someone is working on your family trees and saving "the stories" and saving the
nicknames.@Kidnostad yes, you are correct every family tree has some horse thieves and some heroes. Most of my ancestors came from Ireland. In addition to collecting the family stories, I had to learn their legal first names.
A child is born. The baby is given the first name after one of the elders in the family. However, the legal given name is only used on the birth certificate. The baby is raised with a different name but not with an endearing nickname. For example: my Aunt Mildred's legal first name is "Frances" and not "Mildred". I had to force my Mom to tell me the legal first names of her brothers and sisters for me to complete our family tree.
Recently, my dear "Aunt Deanie" passed over at the age of 94 years old. Long story short, I had to open an estate account after her passing over. First order of business was going to City Hall and file a legal "also known as" to open an estate account. Aunt Deanie had 3 different given names in addition to her nickname "Deanie".
In retrospect, I am not sure if the habit of having different first names is an Irish tradition, a Southern Tradition or just my family's tradition.