Flotsam and jetsam

"Flotsam and jetsam" is short stuff that people have told me (or I have discovered) that seem true and probably are true. Or are definitely true. For example:

Definitely true

• Some parents named two children with the same name while both were living. Davidson and Margaret had two girls both of whom went by the name of Jane. Elizabeth Jane and Mary Jane.

• The name "Eliza" is sometimes a nickname for Elizabeth and sometimes a separate, distinct name and sometimes combined with Elizabeth. Elizabeth Eliza Wilson McGuire, wife of Timothy, buried as E. E. McGuire. Eliza Helton and Elizabeth Helton, sisters.

• According to Jim McGuire, sometimes the initial in a name was just that: an initial. For example, John L. McGuire.

• Leeds, AL, started out in Shelby County, but the county line changed after 1830, and now it is in Jefferson County.

• Occasionally but not often white people were enumerated as black people or mulattos. Abreham Green, 1870, St. Clair County, listed as mulatto though clearly white from earlier censuses.

Probably true

• Sometimes "loose" or scandalous women were not counted in the census. Jeanne Tipton says this is the case with Mary Polly Dennis (maybe) Pinson Voglin Peters.

• Sometimes a child would take a portion of his inheritance early. I believe this, though I have yet to prove it with a document. It would explain why neither James, Charles, or John McGuire were mentioned in Davidson's will.

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