Investigate the meaning, origin, and pronunciation of an ancestor’s given name!
Connecting kids to their ancestors does not have to be complicated or even planned.
One of the recent connections made in my household came about as we were playing “Go Fish” with our ancestor cards. We decided that this time, whenever a card was passed to another player, we had to speak the ancestor’s name out loud.
Then we came across this card:
None of us really knew how to pronounce this ancestor’s name. Was it TIRE-ZUH? TR-ZUH? TEAR-ZUH? TEER-ZUH?
So we turned to Google and searched “how to pronounce Tirza.” A video popped up in the results and we learned this ancestral name was a variation on Tirzah which is pronounced TEER-ZUH.
With this new knowledge, we spoke our ancestor’s name – and the game moved on. No big deal.
That evening as my kids got ready for bed, I felt a tickle in the back of my brain…Among the results on Google we had not clicked on were results that spoke of Tirzah in the Bible. That did sound vaguely familiar…
I picked up my Bible and searched the index for Tirzah. I could tell it was the name of a place in some instances, but I was most intrigued by the mention of Tirzah as a person. I then turned to Numbers chapter 27 and read about a daughter of Zelophehad (another pronunciation look-up possibility!) who, with her sisters, asked Moses for an inheritance when their father died without male heirs. Moses took the matter to God and God said, “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren.”
So guess what I told my kiddos as I tucked them in that night?
My daughter’s reaction: “Tirzah, girl power!”
My son (who himself shares a given name with a Bible figure) nodded a “got it” kind of nod.
This was not a lengthy or scripted experience. To be honest, I don’t know exactly what my children got out of it other than learning how to say a name that was new to them.
But I like to think that making these tiny ancestral connections in their youth is like the planting of seeds.
Maybe it will be when they are pondering what to name babies of their own that a hundred of these encounters become background to their brainstorm. This Tirza episode, the dozens of re-tellings of why my husband and I chose their names (those stories never seem to get old), the slow realization built over time that certain names have been repeated throughout generations in various lines of their family tree.
To be clear: Do I expect every one of my grandchildren to be named for a Bible figure or an ancestor? No!
Do I believe in cultivating a thoughtfulness about names? Sure.
What’s more, I believe in taking advantage of small opportunities to “connect the dots” between my children and their heritage.
Why don’t you give it a try?
- Pull out baby naming books or search online.
- Speak your ancestor’s name!
- Learn what that name means.
- Investigate what famous people have had that name.
- Have fun guessing why your ancestor received that name at birth.
- Explore ancestral nicknames and wonder together: “Why did they choose this name for themselves? Or why did others pin them with this nickname?”
Connect the dots by exploring ancestral given names with your little ones 😊
connectthedotsgenealogy.com 