Thomas Hourigan and John Hourigan were born in March township on 14 September 1849, the sons of Patrick Hourigan and Ann Teevens. I have no idea whether they were identical, or fraternal, twins, but in any case, the priest who baptized the infants — Fr. J. Ryan — made an interesting distinction between the two:1
These are twin brothers, born on the same day (14 September 1849), of the same parents (Patrick Hourigan and Ann Teevens), and baptized on the same day (29 September 1849) by the same priest. And I see no less than four surname spellings here: Horehan; Honan; Hurican; and Hurrican. And then there is a Julia Lahay sponsoring Thomas Horehan, and a John Lahy sponsoring John Hurican.
Just to be clear, I don’t really believe these spelling variations have anything to do with distinguishing between twins! This kind of surname spelling variation is pretty much the norm in the early parish registers.
As I’ve said before (but I’ll say it again): Spelling does not count in genealogy.
-
Notre Dame d’Ottawa (Ottawa, Carleton), Baptisms, marriages, burials 1848-1849, p. 102, B. 288, Thomas Horehan baptism; and B. 289, John Hurican baptism: database, FamilySearch.org (http://www.familysearch.org/: accessed 13 April 2015), Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923. ↩
