I find Ancient names so fascinating
Every week I am treated to rare
names in the “Weekly Genealogist newsletter” sent by NEHGS. This week it’s the name Boudica. I wiki ‘d her this week in search of deep histoy of
England and the Roman occupation. I am
surprised Boudica was such a strong woman yet her name has not carried through
history like one would think. I am
thrilled to read this entry this week:
Name Origins
by Julie Helen Otto,Staff Genealogist
BOADICEA (f): A Latinized form of BOUDICA, the widowed chieftainess of the Brythonic Celtic Iceni (who held lands in what is now Norfolk). In an arrangement common with client kingdoms in recently conquered Roman territory, her husband Prasutagus had willed his domain to his daughters and to Rome — which disregarded the daughters’ claims. Boudica was subsequently severely flogged, her daughters raped; outraged by their treatment, she led the Iceni, Trinovantes, and other tribes in a bloody rebellion in A.D. 60/61 which led to the destruction of Camulodunum (Colchester, Essex), Londinium, and Verulamium (St. Albans), before the Romans crushed the uprising at the Battle of Watling Street. Boudica’s revolt was seen in later years as a heroic resistance to Roman tyranny in what is now England, and is commemorated in Thomas Thornycroft’s statue, “Boadicea and Her Daughters” (1901–2), by the Thames River near Westminster Pier, London.
Boadicea Townsend m. Stafford, Conn. 20 Aug. 1771 Thomas Warner (Stafford, Conn. Congregational Church Records, Corbin Coll. [SG COR 5] 176, p. 14). In about 1787 Thomas and Mehitable (Griggs) Wakefield of Enfield, Conn., had a daughter Boadice Wakefield, who died there 8 Sept. 1807 in her 20th year (“O: don’t forget that you must die, / and turn to dust as well as I”) (Francis Olcott Allen, The History of Enfield, Connecticut, Volume III, 3 vols. [Lancaster, Penn., 1900], 3:2479). At least one bearer of this rare given name used the nickname “Dicy” (which suggests di- could be the accented syllable). Boadicea “Dicy” Scott (not, so far as I know, related to either Mrs. Townsend or her daughter) m. Kent, Conn. (by Rev. Daniel Porter), 29 May 1802 William Brown of Kent (Kent VRs, Barbour Collection of Conn. VRs, citing orig. town rec. vol. 2:64).
I really believe that there is so much more to the Legacy of Bodica. Would love to know what became of her children etc…
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