Favorite names! Personally, my favorite name is one that is unique and the person used it in all their records instead of a nickname. This is a feeling I’m sure most genealogists share! (Although there is something satisfying about being able to correctly identify which John Smith is your John Smith.)
Unique names is something I am familiar with, given my own name. I get lots of comments about my own name – and LOTS of corrections throughout my life. Lots of people would correct it for me, assuming my mother or I had spelled it wrong. No, thank you. It is Nichelle. Just like Michelle, but with an N. There’s a whole spiel that goes with giving someone my name. And although my mom has watched a lot of Star Trek (I got my nerd genes from her, which I am very proud of), I am sadly not named after Nichelle Nichols. I once had someone (a complete stranger) insist that I was, which was interesting. But in reality, my mom had a friend who used Nichelle as a middle name for her daughter and my mom thought it was pretty. That’s the story!
Several of my favorite names in my family tree turn out to be Biblical names, but such ones that go beyond the Mary and Joseph – Hezekiah is an example. Another is the subject for this post: Tryphena (Hockey) Stock, my 4th great-grandmother.
I had to look up how to pronounce it even, just to be certain!
A quick Google search shows that Tryphena is a Biblical name from Romans 16:12 and it was about two women who worked hard in the name of God. I am completely unfamiliar with that story/reference, so feel free to correct me or give more details!
Tryphena is also my last English immigrant. Well, technically her daughter, Hannah (my 3rd great-grandmother) would be considered that, but they all came to America as a family.
I had a hard time finding Tryphena in the 1841 census for England. I believe she is the child called Mary found in the household of Job and Jane Hockey. ((“1841 England Census,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Feb 2018), entry for Job Hockey (age 35), Westbury, Somerset; citing the National Archives, class HO107, piece 962, book 12, folio 10, page 15; Wetbury Parish, ED 21.))
That Mary matches what I do have – she’d be about 13 at that time and she’s in the same area I find her later. There is also a baptism record for a “Iziphena” Hockey, which is likely a transcription error for Tryphena. There it states she was baptized 28 Oct 1827 and was born 4 Sept 1827 to parents Job and Jane Hockey in Shepton Mallet. ((FreeBMD, “Basic Search,” database, FreeREG (http://www.freereg.org.uk : accessed 11 Feb 2018), parish register baptism entry for Iziphena Hockey, 28 Oct 1827, Shepton Mallet, Somerset; citing St. Peter and Paul, reg no. 1768. )) So perhaps her middle name was Mary? Maybe that was easier than her name? I can understand if that was the case!
Then there is her marriage in the England & Wales Marriage Index. She married Forest Stock in Wells, Somerset County, England by 1849. ((“England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Feb 2018), marriage entry for Tryphena Hockey [groom not identified]; citing Somerset County, Fourth Quarter 1849. vol. 10, page 793. Also see “England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Feb 2018), marriage entry for Forest Stock [bride not identified]; citing Somerset County, Fourth Quarter 1849. vol. 10, page 793.)).
Although the index doesn’t indicate who they are marrying, the fact that they have the same volume and page number is a good sign. That and the fact that they are together in the 1851 census for England in Westbury, with their daughter Hannah (my 3x great-grandmother). There, Tryphena is indicated as being born in Shepton Mallet in Somerset, which is less than 6 miles away from Wells, where the two married (I had to Google that). ((“1851 England Census,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Feb 2018), entry for Tryphena Stock (age 23), Westbury, Somerset; citing The National Archives, class HO107, piece 1934, folio 90, page 14; Wells registration district, ED 5, household 59.))
By 1860, the family has moved to Michigan, and from their five year son William who was born in Michigan, they had been there since 1855 at the latest. Why they came is still a bit of a mystery. I haven’t really noticed any family around, but I haven’t searched that hard for siblings at this point either. ((1860 U.S. Census, Macomb County, Michigan, population schedule, Clinton, page no. 383, dwelling 2787, family 2917, Forest Stock and family; image, Ancestry.com(http:www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Feb 2018); citing NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 553.))
She was just 32 in 1860. A few years later, with the start of the Civil War, Forest joins to fight with Michigan.
Never to return.
Which is a story for another time. But for Tryphena, she’s now a widow at 37. I turn 36 this year and that is a haunting reality for me. I don’t have children and couldn’t imagine suddenly be the sole provider for 6 children, all under 16.
She never remarries either. She was still a young woman (in my eyes at least), and a husband probably would have helped. I still need to research her siblings to see if any of them followed her to America, but it could be that there wasn’t family around. Just her and her kids.
By 1873, at the age of 46, she passed away. She died in Lenox, Macomb County, Michigan. ((“Michigan, Deaths and Burials Index, 1867-1995,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Feb 2018), entry for Mary Stock, 30 May 1873; Family History Library “Michigan Deaths and Burials, 1800-1995,” FHL Film Number 979574. )) There’s so much more to her story that I still want to find out! What happened to her siblings, why the move to Michigan, and then what did she do after Forest’s death?
