My grandfather was already past sixty the first time he needed to get a copy of his birth certificate. He discovered that the name his parents chose when he was born (Gilbert Madison) was nothing like the name they actually called him (Marshall Melvin). None of his siblings remembered him ever being called by the name on his birth certificate. When I looked into it years later I discovered that his parents had done the same thing with other children in the family as well. Seemingly they just changed their minds.

@LisaLissonAYMC

21 күн бұрын

That is so interesting! I came across that for one of the grandfather's brother. We still have no idea why the change.

I have seen Irish surname Cronin spelled Cronan, Cronen, Crownan, Crownen, Cronnin, and Cromine, probably unintentionally.

I was searching for the death certificate of a little girl named Carol Jean who died at age 7 from a seizure. I could not find it on any of the main genealogy websites. Then one day I was going through images of death certificates arranged alphabetically, looking for someone else with the same surname as Carol Jean, and I saw a death certificate for a Carroll Gene (male name). I almost skipped on by it, but then took a closer look and it was not for a man, but for a 7-year-old female child who died of epilepsy! Whoever prepared the certificate had messed up the name and it was only by accident that Carol Jean's record was found. Also, some relatives from Sweden (Anders and Sigrid Carlsson) were listed in a census, but could not be found by name search in the census 10 years later. After flipping through the census images for where they lived, a couple named Andrew and Sarah Carlson was found - and it was them. They had 'Americanized' their names.

@LisaLissonAYMC

15 күн бұрын

Finding that death certificate was a great piece of detective work! Sometimes the best thing to do is flip page by page.

It took me quite a while to find my 2nd-great-grandparents' marriage record; John Dimond had been transcribed as John Binnord. I've got one family in my tree who changed their surname from Hunnybun to Vaughn for 2 censuses, then back again to Hunnybun.

@LisaLissonAYMC

15 күн бұрын

That's a nice find on the Dimond marriage record. Congrats! What an interesting name change on that other family line. Wonder what the reason was.

3x great grandfather's given first/middle names: Jacob Heflin Polk; he went by Simon!

@LisaLissonAYMC

21 күн бұрын

Now that's an interesting one. Wonder where Simon came from?

I come from the French Dionne line. I found about 7 variations of the last name including Dionne, Dion, Guyonne, Guyon, Guion, Guionne, and even Young!. I suspect some of them were penmanship or lack of knowledge of how to spell. But in some cases, it also was pronouncing the name with the French accent in America. I created a spreadsheet for reference of these name changes. Another surname issue is when there are 2 or more parts to the name. La Plante is one example. It's French and means "the plant." Some variations include La Plante, Laplante (one word), Plante, Laplante dit Madore, Madore, de la Bourliere, DeLaBoureliere, Labourier (Laborer), Boureliere. NOTE: dit in French means "called" or another name. De La means "of the" and since these are "prepositions" sometimes they are combined into 1 word or left off. It's interesting how the name La Plante (plant) turned into Labourier (laborer). Another surname is Rohde. This can be Rohde, Rhode, Roda. Some of these depended if they were on the Polish boundary or the German boundary. de la Bourliere, Laplante dit Madore, Madore, DeLaBoureliere, Labourier (Laborer), Boureliere. NOTE: dit in French means "called" or "another name.} De La means "of the" and since these are "prepositions" sometimes the propositions are left off. In the 1500s and before, there were no last names. So people used different variations to determine who they were talking about. If the job of that man was baker, his last name became BAKER. Or similarly Cook, Fisher, Farmer, etc. If his job was a blacksmith or tinsmith, the last name could be SMITH If he lived in a distinct area of land his last name might be River or Rivers, Hill, Forest or Forester, Beech or Beach, etc. If he had black or brown hair, his last name might be Black or Brown. If he had red hair, he might be called "Eric the Red" and his son would be "Leif Erickson." (Eric's son). or John's son (Johnson) A wagon maker might be Wagner or Wheeler. SURNAMES ARE FASCINATING!

@LisaLissonAYMC

21 күн бұрын

Yes, surnames and names in general are so interesting! Thank you for sharing your experience with your family's surnames.

Howard/Harwood? Maybe someone back in the family was dyslexic? My grandfather changed the spelling of his last name because there were DOUBLE letters TWICE which "were not needed". Herrmann became Herman.

@LisaLissonAYMC

21 күн бұрын

Very possible. I do have circumstantial evidence that surname was originally Howard, but I can't prove it.

Nicknames can be very tricky. I have a letter from someone signed Cissie and it took a lot of collateral research she was Emily, my father's cousin who we knew nothing of till doing family research

@LisaLissonAYMC

15 күн бұрын

I think nicknames can be the hardest of all to research. They can be so random sometimes.

I had an ancestor named Martha but the census taker spelled it Mothy. Just a nice phonetical spelling of how her name was pronounced, I guess!

@LisaLissonAYMC

21 күн бұрын

Oh, my, that would be hard to find in transcribed records.

In my case it was an indexing error. The 1870 census what's missing for some time. When I researched at a different genealogy company, up it popped with no problem. Sometime later I saw it had been indexed as Fasting instead of Fortney!

@LisaLissonAYMC

15 күн бұрын

You bring up a good tip. It an be helpful to check more than one genealogy database for a name. I , too, have found that an indexer on a different platform may have different take on how the name reads.

@bevleeming6703

14 күн бұрын

@@LisaLissonAYMC One that eludes me is Mathew Hayward in the 1861 UK census. I've tried different spellings, but I can't find him and his family. Haywood, Heywood, Heymann, Heyward. It still happens in the 20th century. Both my parents' middle names have various spellings!

I’ve found 9 variations of Baudermann, that means 9 different searches 👎

@LisaLissonAYMC

15 күн бұрын

Hi, Jenna! Yep, that's a lot of searches. I'm always surprised by the number of variations even on simple names.