Does anyone have evolving surnames?

[ancestorsnoop]

I would love to learn what evolving surnames you have in your ancestry.  It might help on some brick walls.

In my ancestry I have a few, but it is interesting that people still insist someone's surname is only spelled one way. 

When my Bradney family were living in Pontesbury, Shropshire, England, they went by "Bradney" (also spelled Bradeney).  In the 1840's they went to Abersychan, Monmouthshire; Shifnal and Wolverhampton, Shropshire; then latter to Norton Canes, Staffordshire and the USA.  After they moved their Bradney name evolved to "Bradley."  (Then their name was spelled: Bradney, Bradiney, Breadney, Bradley, Bradeley, Braidley, Braidley, Bradeley, Bradley, Bradely,...)  I think some other "Bradney" families in the Wolverhampton area also changed to "Bradley."

My ancestor John Gleaves (abt. 1795-1841) usually went by "Gleaves" or "Glaves," but his children usually went by "Greaves" or "Graves."  (So far I have found John Gleaves's name spelled 9 times as Gleaves, 7 times as Glaves, 3 times as Glives, 1 time as Gleves, 1 time as Clews, and 3 times as Greaves, during his lifetime.)  They lived in Birmingham, Warwickshire.

I also have one or two ancestors, who lived in Somersetshire, with an alias, for example "Booby alias Hearn."  My German ancestor Michael Schmidt, who immigrated with his family to the USA in the 1830s, was often recorded as "Smith" in US records and all his children adopted the "Smith" surname.

[ScouseBoy]

I think that Nursall is one.

It is a very rare surname that has nearly died out now in the UK.
They seem to be concentrated around Milton Keynes area

[ancestorsnoop]

I hadn't thought about that, so that is very helpful.  It is sad to see surname die out.

My ancestor Sophia Mitchel Jones was born in 1790 in Shrewsbury, Shrophsire.  Her father Richard's surname was spelled "Mitchell, Mitchen, Minshall, Minchall, in the poor law records."  I have only found him in the poor law records as her father (he was listed as a glazier apprenticed to Franks), so I don't how he was recorded on other records.

[stevew101]

I have Clibons - Clibbon - Clippens - Clements
and
Gentell - Gentel and Gentle

I guess it was down to the vicars hearing on the day

[ancestorsnoop]

This is very helpful.  I am always trying to figure out the various ways surnames can be spelled by record takers (and transcribers).  I wouldn't have thought of "Clements" for "Clibons."

[stevew101]

Likewise - It took me a long time to short that one out 

[Andrew Tarr]

I guess it was down to the vicars hearing on the day

Literacy was a fairly uncommon accomplishment until the Victorian period, so rural families often knew how their name sounded, but not how it was spelt.  They would have attended baptisms, marriages and deaths, when surnames would have been recorded.  Ministers often had charge of a parish for decades and would have settled on a 'standard' spelling which many families probably adopted, but if the surname was unfamiliar to him a new variant may have appeared.

I have been transcribing registers for a rural Lancashire parish for 1750 to 1850, and it is interesting to see variants occurring in what are clearly established local families, such as Garside/Garthside, Haworth/Howarth or Haddock/Haydock.

My own tree has a Liversidge strain, originating from the Yorkshire town Liversedge, whose spelling became fixed after the appearance of maps.  My ancestors spelt it with the E until they left Yorkshire for Liverpool, when the I variant appeared.  And another strain which arrived as Piercy (from Northumberland) evolved into Percy, with Pearcey and Percey in between, not forgetting a lapse into Pearson, presumably due to a hard-of-hearing cleric at a marriage.

[chris_49]

My Skelceys of Cubbington seem to have started out as Skelcher, which is less euphonious. They were constantly mistranscribed as Kelsey, and one branch ended up adopting this - their father died and their mother remarried, so perhaps they got confused.

[andrewalston]

You should see the name changes in my one-name study.

The earliest records have DUNBABIN, but over the years it is also spelled DUNBAVIN, DUNBAVAND, DONBAVAND, DUNBOBBIN, DUNBEBIN, DUNABIN, DUNDAVAN, DUNBADEN and many others.
One gravestone at Daresbury mentions William Dunbabin, Martha his wife, then John Dunbavand, son of the above.

Anyone who claims that their surname "has always been spelled that way" doesn't know how these things work.