I am helping my FIL find a family member for his family tree.
The gentleman in question has a middle name Triestengestus and is from Dagenham in the UK born 1916.
We think the middle name may give some more clues for the family tree and any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Leechbabe
I am not a scholar of the classics, so I may be wrong, but there was a trend in England to give a child’s position in the ‘litter’ as their middle name, in Latin. E.g. I have a friend whose middle name is “Quintus” (fifth-born), and there are many people from previous centuries called “Septimus” (seventh-born). I wonder if Triestengestus means third-born, thirteenth-born (or even 30th-born??!). Or maybe it means that the person in question was born in Trieste? Can anyone confirm/refute this?
My first thought was that this could be a dog-latin joke indicating that the child concerned was either conceived or born in Trieste.
However, given the political conditions in Europe in 1916, it seems very unlikely that an Englishman could have been conceived or born in (what was then) Austria.
Could the name possibly be any sort of variation of “Tredgold” which is an associated family name?
have just looked through all the names in England on the site freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/index.htm
no luck so far.
Have got Trieste on Merriam-Websters dictionary
thought “gestus” may mean guesthouse but no luck. Gestation seemed fairly obvious. Also possibly mean guessing which is what I am now doing.
“Gestum” appears to be a latin word, meaning:
So it could mean “Gesturing like an orator from Trieste” - a fine ambition for one’s son, if ever there were one.
Just a thought. Could this be a dog-latin joke about his birthday? Do you have a birthday for this man?
Perhaps the spelling as reported is off a bit and it’s taken from “Thrice-Great”, as in the thrice-great Hermes?
The spelling would have to be very far off, wouldn’t it?
Perhaps the spelling is a bit off, and it should read “Bernard”.
Not sure when the birthday is I will check that out with my FIL.
Thanks jjimm for the latin meaning of gestus.
Could explain why leechboy wants to be an actor - its in the genes.