The most influential "biography" of Holmes is "Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street" by Baring-Gould. Faced with Holmes' reticence about his family background and early life, Baring-Gould invented one for him. According to Baring-Gould, Sherlock Holmes was born in Yorkshire, the youngest of three sons of Siger Holmes and Violet Sherrinford. The middle brother, Mycroft, appears in the canon, but the eldest, Sherrinford Holmes, was invented by Baring-Gould to free Mycroft and Sherlock from the obligation of following Siger as a country squire. In reality, "Sherrinford Holmes" was one of the names Arthur Conan Doyle considered for his hero before settling on "Sherlock". Siger Holmes' name is derived from "The Adventure of the Empty House", in which Sherlock tells Watson that he spent some time pretending to be a Norwegian called Sigerson, which Baring-Gould reads literally as meaning "son of Siger."