Given names, middle names, and surnames, oh my!

In my quest to find out as much information as I can about my family history, I usually search by surnames. It is just an easier and much faster method to identify my ancestors. However, there are quite a number of times after hitting a few brickwalls, that I've just used the given name and a birth date and bingo! there they are! Of course it doesn't happen all that often, but enough for me to almost automatically search that way when I hit a brickwall. Middle names are often unknown, or your ancestor just used an initial. I have ancestors who named their children; Marie Isabelle Boudreau, Marie Mary Boudreau, Marie Elizabeth Boudreau-all in the same family, the same parents. It can create a few struggles (and headaches) searching and connecting ancestors.
After receiving all of the Sommer information from Oakwoods Cemetery, I started a little research into this new "branch" of my family tree. What I found out pretty quickly was that several of my ancestors used their middle names instead of their given names. Upon receiving the marriage certificates and death certificates of several of my Sommer ancestors and reviewing federal census records, I quickly discovered that Jacob Sommer was Frederick Jacob Sommer and that James Sommer was Philip James Sommer.
Some people just prefer to be called by their middle name or a nick name instead of their given name. Such is the case with a couple of my first cousins who are known by their middle names. If I was to mention my cousin "Arlene," very few people, if any, would know who I was referring to. She uses the name Terry, short for Therese. My cousin was named after my beloved mother Arlene, but prefers to use a nick name for her middle name. Are you following me here? Imagine trying to find her on a census record one hundred years from now!
My GG Grandfather Marion Albert Hanaway was known by "Bert," short for Albert. He is listed as Marion Hanaway on some census records, and as Bert Hanaway on other census records. You just have to keep plugging away in your research.
Lesson learned: when you can't connect a family member with their surname try their given name and when you can't find them by their given name, well then try their middle name or even a nick name. It can certainly get a little complicated trying to find our ancestors!

Sommer family at Oakwoods Cemetery

Last Sunday my cousin Terry and I searched the final resting place of Katherine Ball, in Oakwoods Cemetery located here in Chicago. We searched and searched for Katherine's grave to no avail. I sent a letter to the cemetery asking for some help and Kim in the office at Oakwoods was kind enough to call me and give me a lot of information! So, this afternoon, three of my children and I stopped at Oakwoods Cemetery again believing we would be lucky and find our "missing ancestors".

Boy did we luck out too! My youngest son Jeremy, found a very large monument with the name Sommer on it. (Kids can move around cemeteries so much easier than adults!) Sommer is Katherine's maiden name. Katherine does not have a marker on her grave but, Kim told me that she is buried in the Sommer family plot. Not only is Katherine buried there but so are fourteen other relatives! Here is the breakdown...

Adults

Katherine Ball, Julia Sommer-----Katherine's sister, Phillip J. Sommer----Julia's husband, Frederick J. Sommer and his wife Elizabeth Sommer, Jacob F. Sommer and his wife Phillipina Sommer, William J. Buis and his wife Margaret Buis and Elizabeth J. Eberhart.

Children

Elizabeth Sommer, Anna Sommer, Frederick Sommer, Arthur Sommer and Ernest Sommer.

Wow! I took pictures of each and every marker. Of course I researched some dates of marriages and dates of death for everyone I could find. Once again I contacted Cynthia at Chicago Genealogy to copy as many of those death certificates and marriage certificates that she can find!

Searching Ancestry from my local library I was able to find many of these relatives on the Federal Census records. For instance, on the 1900 federal census Julia and Philip have two children Elsa (10yrs) and Philip (8 yrs). Frederick and his wife Elizabeth are also living with them. I believe that Frederick and Elizabeth are Philip's parents only because they had been married forty years in 1900 and Philip was 37 years old at that time.

I now have some work to do, putting all these relatives on my family tree! There's lots more research to do now as well, what with all these additional Sommer relatives and their descendants. Plus, I am not absolutely sure of how some of them connect to the others.