What a Difference One Letter Can Make

So, here I am, flying along in my genealogy research with the aid of my bright shiny new toys—several newspaper archives with effective search engines (ahem)—and, just to supercharge the thrill, I decide to work on a surname sure to produce viable results.

I zero in on Watrous. That’s the surname of the man Leon Bean’s sister Blanche married in 1888. With a name like that, there couldn’t be too many false hits, right?

To tell the truth, I’m doing this particular search because I’m trying to find background information on why Mrs. Harry Watrous has a cousin from Wisconsin. That would be her husband’s old stomping ground, not hers. But that blip of a news article I mentioned yesterday said it was her cousin, not his, who passed away in Oakland, California; I’m desperately trying to find out who this Laura Carrier from Wisconsin might be. After all, I’m certainly open to discovering a whole new branch of the Bean or Hankerson families.

With a first name like Harry, I’m thinking this Mister Watrous couldn’t be too elusive. After all, my other bright shiny research toy—the name website I found the other day—says that Harry is a name currently considered “rare.”

But now is not when Harry Watrous was in his heyday. Born in 1862 in Wisconsin, Harry was in his prime by the time my what-to-name-the-baby database picks up on the history of name popularity.

The 1880s, while not even near the year of Harry’s birth, saw the name’s popularity hold steady at a rank of twelve, moving into the top ten most popular boys’ names by the first half of the 1890s. By the time Blanche and Harry named their own son in 1903 (Harry, of course), that name had settled back down to thirteenth place in the popularity race.

I should have gotten that clue. There were a lot of Harrys out there in this Harry’s heyday.

That, by the way, is why they invented middle initials. So that one won’t confuse this Harry Watrous with that Harry Watrous.

But you already knew that, didn’t you?

I, however, have been blithely ignorant of that fact, so enamored am I of my newfound bright shiny newspaper research toys.

I’m finding stuff like:

Mrs. Harry Watrous talked on the life of Clara Barton…

Mrs. Harry Watrous, special field worker for the Y.W.C.A…

Prominent among the women workers were Mrs. Harry Watrous…

Then I come to an entry mentioning admirable work just executed by a young American painter, Harry Watrous…and I think I’ve hit the jackpot. Fame! Fortune! Recognition!

This genealogy stuff is fun!

I make a beeline to Wikipedia, my favorite online place to look up stuff.

Like: “Who is Harry Watrous?”

There was an artist named Harry Watrous. Only, to learn anything about him from his Wikipedia entry, I’d have to know how to read Dutch. Why only the Dutch would be interested in Harry Watrous of San Francisco, I don’t know, but I suppose Google™ Translate is always there to assist me, if I get that curious.

In the meantime, it isn’t dawning on me that Harry is such a popular name, until I hit a news clipping telling me

Mrs. John E. Ortlieb and son from Jamestown, N.Y., are passing the winter in California and were Christmas guests of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Watrous at the family reunion of Mrs. Watrous family, the Farwells of Berkeley, eight of whom were present.

Wait! Farwells? Um…that’s not Blanche’s maiden name.

And that’s when it dawned on me that middle initials can become very important.

I went back and took a look at a lot of other newspaper articles. Some were just mentions of “Harry Watrous.” But many others included a middle initial.

Can you believe, in just the San Jose newspaper, I found not only a Harry W. Watrous—and I have no doubt that this is in addition to the Harry Willson Watrous who was the artist I already mentioned—but a Harry A. Watrous, in addition to my Harry G. Watrous?

Admittedly, by 1900, San Jose’s population was over 21,000. But three Harry Watrouses in a city of that size is still incredible to me.

All I can say is: thank goodness for middle initials. Better yet—make that middle names. At least, I hope a name like Harry Griswold Watrous will give our man enough space to differentiate himself from all those other Harry Watrouses out there in San Jose.


Above right: Harry Willson Watrous, "Sophistication," oil on canvas, originally entitled by the artist, "A Cup of Tea, A Cigarette, and She" for a 1908 National Academy of Design exhibition. One has got to love an artist whose talents include not only a way with words, but the ingenuity of devising the Lake George Monster Hoax. From the collection of the Haggin Museum, Stockton, California, via Wikipedia; in the public domain in the United States, European Union, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the artist plus seventy years or less.