Has anyone looked into this? As I noted about Harriett Beecher Stowe and Calvin Ellis Stowe (her husband), they are both descendants of the original Stowe ancestor. When I start tracing my early American ancestors and branching out, I see a lot of the the same surnames. I'd like to understand the various reasons for this -- obviously the size of the small towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts, the small population, and I assume an affinity for marrying with one's own kind as well.
The other thing that jumps out at me, which I always knew, is the use of family surnames as the child's first or middle name. In our family we followed that custom, not with me, but with my mother, step-father, and all three of my siblings. So one sibling is a "Stowe" for instance .
