Family of Isaac ROBINSON and Anne COTTLE

Anne Cottle Robinson and Israel/Isaac adopted Sylvanus Cottle.

Sylvanus was adopted some time in or after 1705 by Israel / Isaac

Robinson, husband of Sylvanusʼ aunt, Anne Cottle Robinson.*

(The reason for the double name for the man who adopted Sylvanus

is this Israelʼs father was named Isaac and Israel had an older

brother named Isaac. Isaac -2a- drowned on October 6, 1668. Israel

was asked, then, to take the name Isaac to "keep the name alive."

Sylvanusʼ adoptive father had been baptized as Israel on October 5,

1651, but in 1668 he took the name Isaac. It was a uniform custom of

those times when one bearing a leading family name deceased, to give

the name to a younger child.)** Isaac -2b-, like Isaac -2a-, also

died without issue. All of the property the husband of Anne Cottle

Robinson, Israel / Isaac went to Sylvanus.***

* Schwabe, Ancestors and Descendants, p. 370.

** Torrey, New England Marriages, p. 629, "Robinson, Isaac (1651-1728)

(previous to 1668 Israel)..." See also, Otis, Barnstable Families,

Vol. II, p. 231, "... Israel, baptized Oct. 5, 1651. After Isaac was

drowned, in 1668, Israel seems to have taken his fatherʼs name. ...

It was a uniform custom of those times when one bearing a leading

family name deceased, to give the name to a younger child." See also,

Banks, History of Marthaʼs Vineyard, Vol. II, p. 102; Vol. III pp.

418-19.

*** Otis, Barnstable Families, Vol. II, p. 231, "[Israel/Isaac] died

without issue." See also, Schwabe, Ancestors and Descendants, p. 336.