Researching Your Family Tree Through Name Changes

Researching Your Family Tree Through Name Changes

What’s in a name? The answer is, quite a bit actually. If you are beginning a search of your family tree it will help you tremendously to know the history of your family name, or for that matter of the names of other branches of the family. Many times names were changed when people immigrated to this country. If a person’s name sounded too “foreign” in a culture that was primarily of English ancestry then that name may very well have been changed. To a lesser extent, if the spelling of the name seemed difficult or again foreign then it could have been changed for that reason as well.

A prime example of simple spelling differences in languages is in the American and British spellings of certain words. The American word theater is spelled theatre in the UK. Defense is spelled defence. Shop in old English is shoppe. The same small changes often happen with names.

When doing genealogy research you will sometimes notice names spelled several different ways in the same document. Many years ago standardized spellings for names didn’t really exist. Not everyone could read and write in those days, and often members of the same family would spell names differently. The English name Darby for instance could also be spelled Derby, but still pronounced the same way. Also Smith could be spelled Smithe or Smyth, or Smythe. Maddox can also be spelled Maddux, Madux, or even Maddoc. The Scottish name Munro was more commonly spelled Monroe by the English. Then look at names that are translated from one language to another. The French name Choaumote was sometimes Americanized to Shumate, a totally different spelling.

Another reason for name changes is that immigration authorities both made mistakes, including typographical errors, which would stick with an immigrant, and would sometimes arbitrarily change names on their own because they couldn’t pronounce a name or didn’t like the spelling. For instance, the Swedish name Sjoblom, with a silent j, is pronounced see-bloom. Some members of the Sjoblom family had their names changed, involuntarily, to Seebloom or Seabloom.

As another example of how names were changed is the Italian name Tagliaferro which means iron worker. This name became Tolliver. Another Italian name, Amici which means friend was Americanized into Ameche. Even the families of presidents have not been immune. Roosevelt comes from the Dutch name Van Rosevelt, which means of the rose field. Blum, which means flower, was Americanized into Bloom. The German name Roggenfelder which means rye field could have been directly translated into Ryefield, but instead it commonly became Rockefeller.

American names like the American population itself come from all countries of the world. Remember the old movie Stripes when Bill Murray in Army basic training said “Our ancestors were kicked out of all the best countries in Europe”, well most were not kicked out, but instead chose to leave. This included Dutch settlers in New York, French in Louisiana, Spanish in Florida and Texas, Germans in Pennsylvania, English in Virginia, and on and on. The American melting pot and the hope of opportunity in the new country caused most people to want to assimilate, and many did so partly by changing their names. General George Armstrong Custer, so well known for Custer’s Last Stand, had a German grandfather, a Hessian solder whose name was Kuster. Another German name, Schwab which means from Swabia became Swope for many.

Another reason for changes were to simply make the spelling of a name look more American, which was more common English. Double letters such as RR or LL could be replaced by a single letter. Common spellings in other languages, or even in British English, were often subject to change. The common name Grover for instance, can also be Krover, Krober, Groeber, or Crower, as well as other spellings. Sometimes the reason for the change in spelling was the accent of the person immigrating. Sometimes immigration officials would hear the accent and misinterpret it, and usually the new name stuck.

It is important to know the alternative spellings of your family name to do a complete search of your ancestry. If you don’t have that information you could miss vital branches of the family tree.

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