Names taken from family history

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I'm a lot bit crackers about family history and would love to take a name from my tree that is a bit more unusual.

I have to go very far back to find names other than the Margarets and Elizabeths, and around the 1100s I found 'Adeline' which I rather like - it sounds quite elegant IMO - but I'm not sure whether it's "add-a-line" (which I'd prefer) or "add-a-leen".

What d'you lot reckon? :)

I read it as Add-a-line

I've never heard it said out loud.

You pronounce it add- a- line, it's unusual, I like it, and if it haas family connections for you, even better, it would be a very good choice.

Pretty and yes Add a line

I would pronounce it as Ad - a - line, is a very pretty name!

1100s though? Holy crap that's some serious genealogy!

Add-a-line, yes. Very cool.

Love it!

Oh I like!

Add a line

Like from Bread! Or was that Av a line?

Lovely

I had a friend at school who was Adeline pronounced add - a - leen but she was French if that makes a difference?

The Bread character was Aveline.

It does have French roots the poshest Adeline I found was "Adeline de Beauchamp" so yeah. Another for the list!

There's a song:

Sweet Adeline

I thought 'Bread' as well. Similar name. I think it's clumsy.

Adeline doesn't sound very 12th century!

Yup, it is - www.wikitree.com/wiki/Beauchamp-455

sorry www.wikitree.com/wiki/Beauchamp-455

Well you must come from posh stock, I'll bet my 12th century relatives had names like Grubb and Lump.

I wish mine were normal early on! We all have aristocratic ancestors - it's just sometimes almost impossible to trace them. I'm lucky because all my direct lines from the 1600s onwards is from one small town, so surnames are easy to trace, even though they lost their riches by then! It's sickening to see all these ruined castles that used to be my great x n grandfather's property... I should drop the National Trust a line...

All the lines I've traced were aristocratic before the 1600s (before official records of the whole population started) so it's easy to trace back to Norman times.

And since I've traced my direct line back to approx. 300 great x 24 grandfathers, I bet nearly everyone on Mumsnet is directly related to these same aristocrats, as they would have had tens of thousands of descendants.

My family tree has over 10000 people in it so far

Crikey. I got bored doing mine so DH took over. He said it got much easier once they turned up on Wikipedia and he could just keep clicking

I blame the English Civil War. I think my Northern aristocrats ended up supporting the wrong side (Royalists) so got a lot of their land taken from them. It would explain why my direct ancestors suddenly stop turning up in "Castle X" or "Manor Y" and instead end up marrying people with normal names...no more Sirs or Ladies after the 1600s :(

Wow, how posh! If your ancestors owned castles mine would have been their servants more than likely!

I can't believe you've had to go back 800 years to find a usable name though - were they all Margarets and Elizabeths?

So Adeline de Beachamp is likely to have French roots then. Anything to do with Beauchamp Place (Beecham Place) in Knightsbridge OP?

Lovely name by the way.

There's a fair few Alice's, which normally I'd love, but DP's ex and an ex's ex is called Alice so the name is ruined for me :P

There are 283 Margarets in my family. Over 300 Elizabeths. It's quite common, yeah Northern inbred aristocrats were a conventional bunch.

Beauchamp Place has its roots in the Seymour family en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauchamp_Place and I haven't traced my ancestors back through that line yet - I don't think I'm directly related, that's getting close to royal links and I've only found cousins around that way!

There is an Adeline (Addie) in ds' class. Lovely name.