Genealogy Fun

Here's Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge for October 24, 2009: (Randy's blog can be found at Genea-Musings.)

1) What is the most unique, strangest or funniest combination of given name and last name in your ancestry? Not in your database - in your ancestry.

2) Tell us about this person in a blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook.

3) Okay, if you don't have a really good one - how about a sibling of your direct ancestors?

My choice is my 2nd great grandfather, Burwell Spurlock Blue, born 1821 near Barbourville, Virginia. I'm not sure if his name is unique, strange or funny but I've be willing to accept any or all of these descriptions.

Because I felt his was such an odd name, I spent considerable time researching in an effort to understand why his parents would saddle a child with it. Burwell's siblings fared much better in the naming conventions receiving such unassuming handles as Martha, Richard, Mary, Daniel, Elizabeth and Isabelle. So why Burwell Spurlock?

I won't go into the research but eventual I learned about Rev. Burwell Spurlock, 1790-1879, the first Methodist circuit rider preacher in the area of Virginia that the Blues were living at the time of young Burwell's birth. Rev. Spurlock must have had a major influence on the family and thus earned the honor of his namesake.

From "Descendants of John BLAW (BLUE), d. 1757 Somerset County, New Jersey" Fifth Generation, Page 65:
Family legends indicate that he [Burwell Spurlock Blue]was born in Virginia at "the foot of the BLUE Ridge mountains". He was a fiddler and a dancer, and liked to tell "tall tales". He said he "could stand flat-footed and jump as high as his head". He did have big, flat feet, was an excellent woodchucker, and "could drink his weight in whiskey".

I wonder of old Burwell Spurlock would have been very proud of that description?