Thrice. That’s how often the name “Lutiness” shows up in my family tree. The first instance is Lutiness Alonzo Trantham, Sr., who was my great grandfather. Having run out of doctors after whom he could name his children, he then passed the name on to his youngest son and 11th child, Lutiness Alonzo Trantham, Jr. So that accounts for the second instance.

At the risk of stating the obvious, “Lutiness” is not a common name by today’s standards. That same rule holds true of yesteryear’s naming standards. In fact, I ran a search for people named “Lutiness” on Ancestry.com and only the two aforementioned individuals came back in the results across all databases which house millions of records. It begs the question as to where my 2nd great grandparents came up with the name, considering they gave their other children much more common names – Robert Levi, Gladys Lorene, and Bennie Bell (okay, not as common, I’ll admit).

The answer I believe sits on the birth certificate of Lutiness Alonzo, Sr.’s first cousin, Lucine Bonnie Lanier. (Not to confuse the dickens out of you but Lucine Bonnie was a male whose twin sister was named Mary Tommie. My mother thought their middle names were switched at birth and I am inclined to agree.)

Anywho. Lucine’s father, who was married to my great grandfather’s aunt, Effie Trantham, appears as “L. W. Lanier” in every searchable record I could find on Ancestry. But his full name was revealed to be that of “Lutiness Washington Lanier” on Lucine’s birth certificate. There you have it. “Lutiness” was a family name of sorts.  

Lutiness Washington was born in Virginia in 1838. He married Effie Trantham in 1883 in Weakly County, Tennessee, which is also the birthplace of my great grandfather. 

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 1st great grandfather
Common ancestors: Lutiness Alonzo, Sr.’s parents, Campbell Jackson and Isadora Ellen (Sims) Trantham, are my 2nd great grandparents