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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Stanwix England on Monday 02 September 13 00:23 BST (UK)
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Hello Everyone,
In my family tree there are a few odd surnames and I'm wondering if they arose just because people didn't know how to write. ???
For example I've just uncovered a Lison. I also have a Gollagher and a few others like this.
It seems to me that these could just be the more common Leeson and Gallagher except because my ancestors were illiterate, they were recorded differently on the census.
Does that seem like a reasonable explanation?
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Yes, and because spellings weren't standardised, and in general people probably didn't know or care whether or not their surname was spelled 'correctly' or consistently on all documentation. It is sometimes the case that the same name is even spelled differently on the same document.
People had no idea how their name was recorded when it was written by others (who would have just written what they heard) on certificates, marriage entries etc. In these cases it was irrelevant whether or not the person was literate as it would be unlikely that they would be required to check it. Even today I doubt that we would ask to check if our surname was spelled correctly. Even when spelling out the surname letter by letter, it can still be written wrongly by a third party (I always have to spell my surname and it is still regularly written incorrectly).
Mistakes happen - recent prime example - daughter's surname 'Wright', received letter addressed to 'Right'. :-\ You would expect not to have to spell that surname ...
This (and examples) have been debated many times on rootschat. Maybe a search for "surnames" or some such will bring up previous discussions on the topic. :)
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It just depends on Education regulations and how far back you go as to whether individuals were illiterate. Accents and dialects were far more pronounced than they are now and I've found spelling anomalies occurred when an ancestor had moved away from home. For instance my Norfolk "Shearing" ancestor moved to Cambridgeshire and to the census enumerator's ear his name sounded like "Sharring" and that's what he wrote down. Meanwhile his uncle had moved from Norfolk to the Midlands and his name was noted as "Shearen".
Other than that, it's often the transcriber of UK records living in foreign lands who mostly mistranscribe names.
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Passenger lists 19th Century ... vital documnts to trace migrant ancestors... Spelling variations all over the place... Even where the family head wrote a diary during the voyage... Possible Explanation : Passengers likely could not read 'upside down' as the list would be ffacing the crew...
I have a Gt Gt Granmother travelling with her 4 yr old son ... Her name listed as Eliza ... the Passenger list shows she is a 'MALE '... .. Which causes much laughter to her living descendents in NSW ... Would that be a spelling mistake.... Ummmmmm
Cheers JM
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I am linked to a family in County Durham with the name of Freik, or is that Friek, Freick, Frieck or Freak- the are all on some sort of documentation and a few more variations than above. For my computer I had to standardize them. As Ruskie states who cares? 2013 brings us to life. Variation of spelling on your passport and your airline ticket - no fly!
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Some name changes were intentional. All of my Stallas eventually changed their name to Stella, presumably because their name was constantly misunderstood. Before they made the change they appeared in censuses as Stoller, Staller, Staley, Stahle, etc.
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I take the view that people over 100 years (perhaps even 50 years) didn't know how to spell their names and,when it was required (births,deaths,marriages,census,) the cleric or enumerator and/or the person giving the detail may have been hard of hearing or have a speech impediment or drunk or all three.
My one name study/evolution of my own name since 1588 is in the format of an 'Exell' spreadsheet and the variations are quite considerable.
Joe
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My one name study/evolution of my own name since 1588 is in the format of an 'Exell' spreadsheet and the variations are quite considerable.
Or even an Excel spreadhsheet?! ;D
Or is that another spelling variation?
See how easy it is to introduce variations! ;D ;D
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You picked my deliberate mistake KG .......... well done ;D ;D
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and further to my earlier post I have a very minor ancestral relationship with the name 'Sedenary' which has been followed by many in rootschat.
When he must have arrived in UK I think has not yet been determined ...... however when he married he recorded/wrote his name as 'Jessepo Seidenary'
now there is no letter Y in the Italian alphabet and as to 'Jessepo' I can only conclude that it must have been some cockney at his disembarkation that recorded that name for him and quite likely that became his English name henceforth?
Joe
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I have the name Soul / Sole in my family, apart from the various other ways of spelling this there is the sudden appearance of Souls / Soles on some census papers. I think that the enumerate asked who they where and got the answer "we are the Soul,s /Sole,s"
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I have the name Soul / Sole in my family, apart from the various other ways of spelling this there is the sudden appearance of Souls / Soles on some census papers. I think that the enumerate asked who they where and got the answer "we are the Soul,s /Sole,s"
Yes the pluralization of surnames is a real problem .... it was for me as my mother's surname was Flower and her line was from Reading Berkshire where I got severely confused as there were oodles of Flower and Flowers who when it was all boiled down were the same family.
It's all part of the joy of unravelling family history.
Joe
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Hello Everyone,
In my family tree there are a few odd surnames and I'm wondering if they arose just because people didn't know how to write. ???
For example I've just uncovered a Lison. I also have a Gollagher and a few others like this.
It seems to me that these could just be the more common Leeson and Gallagher except because my ancestors were illiterate, they were recorded differently on the census.
Does that seem like a reasonable explanation?
If you look at parish registers, you will find a lot of variation in spelling of surnames. Quite often the same vicar will spell a name with a number of variations over time - and these people generally had more education than their parishioners.
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Meet my Priday family!! I can make a guess at how it was pronounced, at least locally, from the most common misspellings - Pready, Preedy - but have also found them as Priddy, Pritty, Preaden etc. And try looking them up in anything using OCR - every article that mentions Friday!
And then one of the Priday daughters married a man called Frowen - this one is a joy for mistranscription, although they themselves seem to have been fairly consistent in spelling - Frower, Frewen, Flower(s), Trower, Trowing, Frowing. I keep finding new variations for them every time I have another look.
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I sympathise...my Stokes over time were spelled variously as Stoakes, Stoks, Stox, Stocks, Stockes, and even a Stuckes.
In fact, I faced one large brick wall for ages, until I accepted that the different spellings in the parish registers in the same town, were all the same family. Mine!
Eventually, the good peeps at the local family history society put me straight.
:D
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Even when people were literate, they were unlikely to correct an authority figure who put it down differently. My one-name study has any number of these, with surnames at marriages being written by the clergy "incorrectly", while the bride or groom signed "properly". Of course it is the rubbish version which has been indexed.
Even the will of William Shakespeare, who I think we can all agree was literate, has his surname spelled in THREE different ways.
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I think most families could cite instances of this kind and not always because they were illiterate. Three examples which come to mind from my own family are
1.the Leicestershire Freestones, where different generations eithe omitted or included the final letter, resolved only when someone from the area explained that in the local dialect the name would have ben pronounced Freestun, whatever the spelling.
2. A 1742 will in which the man names himself and his sons as Sanders throughout and then signs the document Saunders
3. A living relative named Horn who, upon joining the army, was told that his name was officially Horne. The registrar had written it that way when his birth was registered snd that, so far as the law was concerned, was that.
Keith
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"and that, so far as the law was concerned, was that"
That reminds me of a friend who filled out a government form and, in the space for middle name, put, "(none)". For ever after, None was her middle name as far as that government agency was concerned.
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I have this in my family! My NANs maiden name was Plimmer, her dad was a Plimmer and his dad was a Plimmer. However HIS dad was a Primmer, as was his mom and her mom and her dad before them (can't get any further back at the moment).
I always thought that perhaps it was how they pronounced it and it then got written down, at baptisms, censuses etc x
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This got me thinking. The location I extensively study (Holme valley in West Yorkshire) has had a school officially since 1690s and in comparison the local records are very sparse for the area at that date, the chapel of ease being in nearby Holmfirth. You often see different spellings for common local names done differently.
Quite apart from a presumption of some literacy generally, youd think the clerk would be literate and know the families involved
Whats now known as Howard would commonly be written as Heward or Hayward, Heywood.
Heward seem quite staright forward to me as many would have actually pronounced their name that way in the local dialect. Maybe they insisted on that spelling or maybe the clerk was having a lend. I assume family feuds were rife so perhaps some differentiated families in that way too
I also looked at the Holmfirth express in the local library. although it is now defunct it dates back to late 1800s and would have a level of language closer to the financial times today than common tabloids, so which era is illiterate ?
(takes care not to have spelling mistakes in a post critisising literacy standards)
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, youd
staright
(takes care not to have spelling mistakes in a post critisising literacy standards)
Weelllllll, these two jump out ;D
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Whats now known as Howard would commonly be written as Heward or Hayward, Heywood.
Heward seem quite staright forward to me as many would have actually pronounced their name that way in the local dialect. Maybe they insisted on that spelling or maybe the clerk was having a lend. I assume family feuds were rife so perhaps some differentiated families in that way too
I think that the letter W in Howard;Heward;Hayward;etc even before 1690 may well have been influenced because the letter W had a different sound in Old English and Middle English see here;
http://www.fact-index.com/w/wy/wynn.html
I have an interest in the surname TUTCHIN in Buckinghamshire and have got back to the 1590's with that name and the variations are extensive because the U letter has morphed into W
Joe
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My maiden name was Sedgwick, a not uncommon name in County Durham and Yorkshire, where they generally know not to put an 'e' in the middle of it. However, looking back through the family tree I find that in one parish the family was recorded as 'Shedwick', whereas for about three generations in another parish they were entered as 'Sigsworth'. As we travel further back the name becomes Sidgwick and there it stays until it first emerges in my FT as 'Siggeswycke'.