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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: oldhippy on Tuesday 15 June 21 09:32 BST (UK)
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Hambling and Hamblin.
Why would the fathers name be Hambling yet his sons & daughters surnames are on document as Hamblin. I have this a few times with the Hambling family tree. Is it a spelling mistake? One such father’s children some emigrated to America with the changed surname to Hamblin and their children carried on with the same surname, now it looks like I have two different family trees. What does a Genealogist do?
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Spelling is an art form, not a science!
On most documents the names are written by somebody else - registrar, vicar, priest, etc.
They tended to write what they heard.
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Early 1800s ... I have COLLINGS as surname, then when his sons married, they were COLLINS .... where did that G go? ... dunno, but it did not re-appear on my tree.. It got dropped off.
JM
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Spelling is an art form, not a science!
On most documents the names are written by somebody else - registrar, vicar, priest, etc.
They tended to write what they heard.
Are you saying because the spelling is different the people would still keep their original name? This is not the case as I have photos of headstones which have the different surname.
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Don't get hung up on spellings ;D
In the days of semi-illiteracy, many people didn't know how to spell their names.
I have seen documents where there are variations of the same surname within the document :D
It's the sound of the surname that was important - not the spelling.
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Just to confirm what the others have said. Variations in the spelling of surnames, is very often found. I have at least 5 surnames in my tree which have a range of spellings in the records: Stokes is one!
Gadget
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But that doesn't answer why did the actual name change for it to be on the gravestone. I can understand spelling mistakes on documents but not for them to actually be carved in stone. The same with marriage certificates.
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You have to bear in mind that spelling variations will be perpetuated through the generations. People quite often wrote what they heard and if the person from whom they were hearing the name was illiterate, then no check would be possible.
Family history is full of name variations most of which are probably due to mishearing the name or to family members who could not read or write.
You just have to accept it and go with it.
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But that doesn't answer why did the actual name change for it to be on the gravestone. I can understand spelling mistakes on documents but not for them to actually be carved in stone. The same with marriage certificates.
But which variant is the "real" name?
Who decides what the "correct" spelling is?
Take my own name - Garrad.
Many RC'ers call me Garrard!
I get post all the time addressed to Garrod, Garrett, Garrard, Goddard, even Gadd!
I will repeat my earlier assertion:
Spelling is an art-form; not a science ;D
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Also, what was written on the gravestone was what was told to the mason who then wrote it down as he thought it was - or even got it wrong.
I have an example of my 3x grandmother having the numbers in her age transposed(86 rather than 68) , which made her in her 60s when her last child was born.
As GG says, you have to accept it. Hambling and Hamblin are very close and, allowing for accents, are fairly easy to misinterpret.
Gadget
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I would say as far back as I have got would be the correct spelling being Hambling my late Grandfather was a Hambling. As I said I can except spelling mistakes in documents but why should it be different on a gravestone, I'm sure the ones that were still alive would have told whoever did the gravestone what the surname was and how you spell.
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Until people learned to read/write other people who could read/write wrote documents ( so the vicar, parish clerk, the banker, the legal officer, the tax man, all those people who had learned to read/write) including their names and wrote it down how is sounded to them... so depends on their accent, depends on how they heard it and phonically spelt it which is why you get several variants of the same name even the same person on different records...so back then, unlike now no one was precious about spellings of their name
If you look on marriage certificates you will see an X as 'their mark' so they didn't read/write, if you look at the census you will see 'can't read/write' and so the people didn't know what their name looked like written down, how it was spelt so couldn't even if they wanted to 'correct it' and many later on would just copy how they saw it was written by someone else...so maybe different to how their paent or sibling wrote their name
Spelling didn't become important until the mid 20th century and then because the education system put lots of effort into teaching reading and writing to all, and with all in compulsory education to achieve this.
So names or the spelling of names when researching are not so important, it is finding the primary 'connecting' record to prove parent to child or wife to husband
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I would say as far back as I have got would be the correct spelling being Hambling my late Grandfather was a Hambling. As I said I can except spelling mistakes in documents but why should it be different on a gravestone, I'm sure the ones that were still alive would have told whoever did the gravestone what the surname was and how you spell.
There is no 'correct' spelling of your surname. What you are finding are different variations of the same surname which is common. I've see legal documents even up to early 1900s where different spellings are used for same person (and person even signed their own name in the document using 2 different spellings).
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We have to put ourselves in the minds of people who just didn't care very much how things are spelt, because writing was not a big part of their lives.
We read every day, and our place in society is defined by precise spelling of our name which determines our rights to our money, property, identity, etc. That makes us care a lot about it and we can't imagine how we'd function without that system.
But maybe we are the anomaly. Our ancestors did important things via speaking and collective memory, and if things were written down then that was in many ways just an aide-memoire. And even once the authorities started caring about precise documentation as a way of managing society - an ordinary person wouldn't necessarily be on board with that newfangled, unnecessary, complicated, etc etc.... stuff. It took a few generations for the culture to shift to where we are today.
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Let me get this right. Even with different spelling of the surname the family are the same.
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Let me get this right. Even with different spelling of the surname the family are the same.
Correct ;D
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Let me get this right. Even with different spelling of the surname the family are the same.
The concept of correct spelling or misspelling is a relatively recent phenomenon. Nowadays, we have a heavily engrained sense of "correct spelling" drilled into us from our own education amongst other things, but in the past there wasn't necessarily such a thing as a misspelled word or name. We're talking about societies predominantly using oral communication where "the masses" couldn't read or write (well).
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Let me get this right. Even with different spelling of the surname the family are the same.
Yes.
I have an ancestor whose surname was spelled Aldcorn or Alcorn. Some of his children used the name Alcorn for themselves and their own descendants, but one used Alcoran and so that whole branch of my distant cousins is called Alcoran. Even in the Alcorn branch, it appears as Alcorne later as a child's middle name. They were fine with that. Maybe they just liked the look of vowels, who knows.
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... and so the people didn't know what their name looked like written down, how it was spelt so couldn't even if they wanted to 'correct it' and many later on would just copy how they saw it was written by someone else...so maybe different to how their paent or sibling wrote their name
Spelling didn't become important until the mid 20th century and then because the education system put lots of effort into teaching reading and writing to all, and with all in compulsory education to achieve this.
A couple of examples from Ireland.
A census return with 2 spellings of the family's surname.
A man reported his brother's death. Registrar queried different spellings of his signature and brother's surname. Informant replied that the spelling of the brother's surname was how he'd spelled it when he was alive.
I agree that spelling became important after compulsory education, in late 19th century in England, later in Ireland.
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I would say as far back as I have got would be the correct spelling being Hambling my late Grandfather was a Hambling.
How far back?
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If you're worried about Hamblin and Hambling, try having Welsh patronymics to contend with.
Many of mine from before the late 1700s were written in the parish records in this form. When this changed to surnames, I have an example of one brother's surname being Ellis and one being a Roberts. Their father was an Ellis ap Robert.
Gadget
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The concept of correct spelling or misspelling is a relatively recent phenomenon. Nowadays, we have a heavily engrained sense of "correct spelling" drilled into us from our own education amongst other things, but in the past there wasn't necessarily such a thing as a misspelled word or name. We're talking about societies predominantly using oral communication where "the masses" couldn't read or write (well).
Seems that in modern society, spelling is becoming less important ;D
(Judging by post on various forums)
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I would say as far back as I have got would be the correct spelling being Hambling my late Grandfather was a Hambling.
How far back?
Bang on the nose 1600
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I think the tough part is distinguishing how an ancestor spelled his or her name and how it was recorded by other people. In my tree, the Stallas quickly became Stellas in the United States. It seems that Stalla was just too weird for Americans to deal with, so they converted it to something familiar. Every record after about 1880 [and many before that time] gives the family name as Stella. Except one. In 1918, Robert Harvey Stella, grandson and namesake of the original immigrant, registered for the draft using the surname Stalla. He signed the document and his signature is clear. And yet, he was born and apparently lived his whole life as a Stella. His father, his uncle, his aunts, his siblings and his daughter were all called Stella, too. So, what did Robert think his surname was? I wish I had more signatures from this family that would clarify their own feelings about their name.
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One branch of my wife's family are called Murten. A proud Yorkshire family who are also pride themselves in the correct spelling of the name. Their ancestors actually migrated from Norfolk and Suffolk in the mid nineteenth century, and the actual spelling could be any of the many possible combinations of vowels, even Martyn. The handwriting in many of the registers mean it is often impossible to decipher which vowel the writer intended to record with any degree of certainty. A 'foreign' accent could also leave a lot of doubt, with the pronunciation, how a name should be spelt.
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The modern computer has a horribly strict and proscriptive naming protocol.
I when I order my tree surname data in alphabetical order in search of erroneous duplicated people, I find the importance of the use or avoidance of the HYPHEN in double or triple barrelled surnames.
So, to hyphenate or not to hyphenate?
Fitz-Herbert, FitzHerbert, Fitz herbert , Fitz Herbert or Fitzherbert?
Also the FULL STOP and Spacing as in the common abbreviation of the surname SAINT. St.Leger, St. Leger, St Leger or Saint Leger.
I am now tending to avoid all hyphens in the hope for some personal consistency, at least in the strict alphabetical ordering!