What do all these suffixes mean?
Well, it depends on who you talk to and what you read. It matters to some people and not in the least to others. The Wikipedia article on Suffix (Name) is quite good on the topic.
I'm most interested in general suffixes which indicate that someone has been named after someone else in their family and what that relationship might be. It's very useful, to me, as a family historian, to find someone designated as a junior or as II. These suffixes are most often designated for males but have been for females names after their mothers.
So, the practice of designating seniors, juniors and others, is purely social and for etiquette and for tradition and convention; though, I would think that if two individuals, with identical names, were named in a will, it would be very helpful to use some kind of suffix to indicate who was whom. It's not set in law, and, I don't think it should be, but, I think people should follow the tradition.
I use a professional suffix sometimes because, as far as I'm concerned, my profession has been important and, in the midst of others who are flaunting their professional pronouns, I think mine should also be seen: Lorraine I. O'Dell, M.L.S. M.L.S. is Masters of Library Science. It required six years of university study. I use it on WikiTree because a lot of genealogists use their professional suffixes so why not me? It's really just a "my credentials are just as good as yours" thing; I won't deny it.
Quoting from Wikipedia: "According to The Emily Post Institute, an authority on etiquette, the term Jr. can be correctly used only if a male child's first, middle, and last names are identical to his father's (current) names."
This is what I learned as the standard for these generational suffixes. If the middle name of the son is different from the father, then he is not a junior but just whatever his name is. Charles Clinton Adams, son of Charles John Adams, is not his junior.
That brings up an aspect of all of this. Standards; we've really gotten away from standards. After all, everyone can meet standards and, well, .... I think it's a shame that we're living with fewer and fewer standards - for everything.
For me, as a family historian, it's very helpful to see a family line where there is a Robert Bruce Jones, Sr., Robert Bruce Jones, Jr., Robert Bruce Jones, III, etc. And, what does happen if Junior names his son after himself? Well, it depends, of course, on what the family wants - pity. Generally, the order is senior, junior, II or 2nd, III or 3rd, etc., but there is at least one variation on that order. Sometimes, senior doesn't name a son after himself, but a son of Robert Bruce Jones, maybe Charles Robert Jones, names a son after his father. Then, his son, Robert Bruce Jones, becomes II, called "the second"; the order skips a generation. It can then continue.
Here's a variation from a branch of my family tree: I have a 4th great grandfather, Ezra Oliver. He had a son, Darius, who had a son, who had a son, Ezra Oliver. The latter Ezra Oliver was Ezra Oliver II; the suffix skipped two generations. Ezra Oliver II was great grandson of Ezra Oliver, Sr. I have no idea if he and his family thought of him or called him the second. I knew about this for, maybe, a decade. The Odell/Oliver Clan is a very interested branch of my father's family. Then, I learned that Ezra Oliver, Sr. had been married twice. While details are very fuzzy, it appears that he left his first wife and two daughters and married someone else, Abigail. I knew about this second family for a while. Among the children was Rhoda Oliver. At some point, I stumbled on a newspaper clipping that Ezra Oliver was living with his sister, Rhoda Oliver. But, reading carefully, it was clear that this was not Ezra Oliver II, this was a different Ezra Oliver. Rhoda was the daughter of Ezra Oliver Sr. in a second marriage and this Ezra Oliver was her brother. After a little more research, I realized that this was Ezra Oliver Jr. He was born before Ezra Oliver II and the direct junior to Ezra Oliver Sr. It's a little messy but, if you chart the family you can see the relationships clearly.
So, I like to see:
Senior
Junior
II
III
etc.
It looks good on paper, it's tidy and clear who is whom. It's what I recommend.
Now, what happens when one person in the chain dies? As far as I'm concerned, nothing should happen. They are each a person named for someone of a previous generation in their family. However, it's up to the family, of course. One tradition, is that everyone moves up a notch so junior becomes senior, II becomes junior, etc. if the steps occur in that way. I don't like that tradition; it, more or less, negates the person who died from the chain. In actual usage it's all over the place. I like to preserve the family order as it originally occurred, not because it's the way it "should" be but because it allows me, a researcher, to know that there were a number of men in a particular family named in sequence. It implies that they were proud of their family.
I think of family history as honoring families; it's always my intent. Certainly, there are people who don't deserve to be honored (family historians know a lot of secrets) but, for me, the general principle is to show the flow of time through the generations of families. Whether individuals in a family conform to any of the conventions society sets for them is another topic.
I am collecting signatures, from documents, when I can find them, to determine and prove how individuals wrote their own names which is part of how they saw themselves. Most of the names we see in the history of families were written by somebody other than the person themself and the errors and sloppiness are amazing. Official documents? Yeah, right! Standards again. Does anybody care whether or not they do a good job anymore?
