RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: XPhile2868 on Saturday 09 April 05 23:44 BST (UK)
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Does anyone know of a site where you can enter an English surname and get foriegn variants?
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If there is that would be wonderful!
It has taken me 20 years to uncover that Dedross (Hoxton 1777) came from Droz (Switzerland - French Speaking 1748).
On my journey, I asked a French person living in London to write down the alternative spellings for the (English) phonetic (Deadrow). Expecting a couple of options, I got two pages of possibles!! Fortunately, my ancestor was literate and there was a written example of his name (from 1777) - but this too was 'anglicized' from Droz to Dross. It also seems that my ancestor added the "De" at the front of his name to imply some level of nobility as in "Of". Many "French" immigrants did this to gain favor with their new hosts.
I'm pretty sure that there is no easy conversion formula, given all the variables. Some people, especially from Eastern Europe, just chose a new name. In a similar vein on a visit to Hong Kong, several years ago, I learnt that Cantonese women, on arrival, would pick a name from a gardening book - depending upon which flower they thought the prettiest!
Nigel
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Nigel - do you know your Droz ancestors in Switzerland? Plenty of them in the canton of Neuchâtel, and I'm going to the archives there next week!
MR
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In a similar vein:
I posted some tips on anglicization of emigrant names at
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,11860.0.html
"Sharing Useful Tips: Germany & E.Europe"
includes my favourite name-change of all time:
".. Abraham ben Isaiah, otherwise known as Moses Abraham Groomsfelt, or Jones, a silversmith .."
I also read an account recently, in a family history book, of two brothers Frank Charles DEGENHARDT and Walter DEGENHARDT, who, at the turn of the century, decided their names (their father was a german immigrant) were TOO german:
Walter DEGENHARDT became Walter HART, and
Frank Charles DEGENHARDT became Frank CHARLES !!