52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #14 - Polycarpus Stocklin

This is #14 in a Genealogy Blog Challenge issued by Amy Johnson Crow over on her blog "No Story Too Small." The challenge is to write 52 blog posts on 52 ancestors throughout 2014

*NOTE* I am out of the country this weekend. This post was written and scheduled to post in advance.

Temptation!

When I was first on Ancestry, I became quickly seduced and addicted to those little fluttering green leaves. You know the ones.


I was a novice genealogist. I quickly got addicted to the high of adding more names to my tree! So I started to click and add and click and add and click and add....without independent verification.

I am now going through the process of independently verifying everything in my tree, which brings us to Polycarpus Stocklin.


According to those seductive, addicting, fluttering green leaves, Polycarpus Stocklin was born in 1651 in Basel, Switzerland and he died in 1728 in Basel Switzerland.

No, I have not independently verified him yet.  I'm still doing the verification on ancestors living in the late 1800s / early 1900s! 

So why write about Polycarpus? Take a look at the following list.

Johann Georg Stocklin (b. 1827) was the son of Johann Heinrich Stocklin.

Johann Heinrich Stocklin (b. about 1795) was the son of Johann Heinrich Stocklin

Johann Heinrich Stocklin (b. 1762) was the son of Heinrich Stocklin

Heinrich Stocklin (b. 1731) was the son of Hans Heinrich Stocklin

Hans Heinrich Stocklin (b. 1689) was the son of Polycarpus Stocklin

Polycarpus Stocklin (b. 1651) was the son of Hans Jacob Stocklin

Hans Jacob Stocklin (b. 1626) was the son of Jacob Stocklin

Jacob Stocklin (b. 1595) was the son of Jacob Stocklin

Jacob Stocklin (b. 1568) was the son of Peter August Stocklin

Peter August Stocklin (b. 1525) was the last fluttering green leaf I clicked before I came to my senses and thought "How do I know for SURE these guys are my ancestors?"

Look at this list of strong family names.  Jacob. Hans. Heinrich. Good, solid, Christian names. Names that could conceivably be passed down to children today.

Where in the hell did they come up with a name like Polycarpus?

My aunt, a nurse with a background in Latin, told me that Polycarpus means something like "many bodies."  Google Translate (yes, Google Translate will do Latin!) says it means "many wrists."  Someone else said it means "big body."  

Regardless.  Where did the name Polycarpus come from?

THAT's why I chose to write about him.

Maybe someday soon, I'll be able to follow that line and gather all the paperwork and independently verify that the fluttering green leaves were right. I really hope I can. Who wouldn't want an ancestor with the name of Polycarpus sitting in their tree! I can also only imagine what a man with that name could possibly be like! Was he constantly teased? Was it a nickname and not his given name?

What's the strangest name you've come across in your genealogy work?