It drives me mad when, having undertaken some 'free' research for someone, they respond with something like, "Oh, that can't be my 'Hynes' ancestor. It looks like them, but our family always spells the surname 'Hines', with an i". 😖
I get it. I do. When you were born, your birth was registered. You needed a copy of your birth certificate to get a passport, to get a driving licence, and/or to obtain a national identity card. You’re pretty much stuck with the surname your parents gave you, probably spelled the same way it was given to them by their parents. You’d have to jump through hoops to change the spelling of your surname now.
But this was not true in the past!
Your earlier ancestor's name may have been spelled differently. They may have used several different variants during their lifetime. You might even see different spellings within the same document. Why did your ancestors vary the spelling? The simple answer is Because. They. Could.
Remember, they didn’t have a birth certificate to keep things on track.
If your ancestor was illiterate (or perhaps an Irish speaker), they may not have been aware of the changes in spelling. Someone else wrote their name for them, and spelled it according to their own experience, or transcribed it phonetically based on their best interpretation of your ancestor’s accent.
Or, maybe your ancestors deliberately chose a different spelling. Several of my mid-nineteenth-century Byrne relatives changed their name to Burns in the US. Maybe they were illiterate and this was the more common variant where they were, or maybe they wanted to appear Scottish, to avoid the discrimination often shown towards the Irish at the time. Who knows!
Or, perhaps they were proud of their origins and wanted to highlight their Irishness. As in, they may have reinserted the traditional ‘O’ or 'Mc' prefix in their surname, a prefix probably dropped by their family many generations previously when their name was anglicized.
For example, my great-great-granduncle, Thomas Carroll, became Thomas O’Carroll soon after his marriage in New Zealand. He wasn’t illiterate. He signed his ‘Carroll’ surname perfectly on the register of his marriage to Ann Sloane in 1864, but then fairly consistently used the O’Carroll variant for the rest of his life. His brother back in Ireland never reinserted the ‘O’ prefix in his surname. It was during a Gaelic revival in Ireland when some of the next generation took back the O' prefix.
Such a surname change could cause many researchers to hit a genealogy brick wall. Even with the New Zealand death register that provided the full names of both of his parents, if subsequent researchers specifically searched for only the O'Carroll name, and discounted all other variants, their search of Irish records would fail. Thomas's roots in Ireland might never be found. His parents were recorded in Ireland as Carroll.
The O’Carroll-Sloane marriage in New Zealand may have been missed if researchers concentrated solely on the later spelling variant, as the marriage record shows Thomas Carroll (with no ‘O’ prefix) marrying Ann Sloan (without a silent ‘e’ at the end). Some researchers may have been fooled into suspecting the couple married elsewhere, throwing them off track.
Worse still, his obituary confirms Thomas was a policeman in Ireland before he emigrated, but the only Thomas O’Carroll of the right age, found in the records of the Royal Irish Constabulary, was born in 1838, in Co. Kerry. Our Thomas was named in these records as Thomas Carroll, born in 1837, in Co. Tipperary. This clue might well have been missed, and set many researchers down the wrong path entirely, had their search not included surname variants.
So what if you have a silent ‘e’ at the end of your surname? So what if you spell your name with an ‘O’ prefix, or use 'i' instead of 'y'? Your ancestors at some point probably did not.
So, I’ll say it again, when it comes to researching your ancestors, the spelling of your surname is quite literally irrelevant! Don’t restrict your research by seeking only the exact spelling of your family name now. Be very flexible. Search with every variant. And, if your search initially fails, actively seek out more variants. Check out John Grenham's surnames' website at Irish Ancestors.
Don’t build an unnecessary genealogy brick wall. Irish genealogy is hard enough without creating your own obstacles.
I get it. I do. When you were born, your birth was registered. You needed a copy of your birth certificate to get a passport, to get a driving licence, and/or to obtain a national identity card. You’re pretty much stuck with the surname your parents gave you, probably spelled the same way it was given to them by their parents. You’d have to jump through hoops to change the spelling of your surname now.
But this was not true in the past!
Your earlier ancestor's name may have been spelled differently. They may have used several different variants during their lifetime. You might even see different spellings within the same document. Why did your ancestors vary the spelling? The simple answer is Because. They. Could.
Remember, they didn’t have a birth certificate to keep things on track.
If your ancestor was illiterate (or perhaps an Irish speaker), they may not have been aware of the changes in spelling. Someone else wrote their name for them, and spelled it according to their own experience, or transcribed it phonetically based on their best interpretation of your ancestor’s accent.
Or, maybe your ancestors deliberately chose a different spelling. Several of my mid-nineteenth-century Byrne relatives changed their name to Burns in the US. Maybe they were illiterate and this was the more common variant where they were, or maybe they wanted to appear Scottish, to avoid the discrimination often shown towards the Irish at the time. Who knows!
Or, perhaps they were proud of their origins and wanted to highlight their Irishness. As in, they may have reinserted the traditional ‘O’ or 'Mc' prefix in their surname, a prefix probably dropped by their family many generations previously when their name was anglicized.
For example, my great-great-granduncle, Thomas Carroll, became Thomas O’Carroll soon after his marriage in New Zealand. He wasn’t illiterate. He signed his ‘Carroll’ surname perfectly on the register of his marriage to Ann Sloane in 1864, but then fairly consistently used the O’Carroll variant for the rest of his life. His brother back in Ireland never reinserted the ‘O’ prefix in his surname. It was during a Gaelic revival in Ireland when some of the next generation took back the O' prefix.
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| 1864, Carroll-Sloan, marriage register |
Such a surname change could cause many researchers to hit a genealogy brick wall. Even with the New Zealand death register that provided the full names of both of his parents, if subsequent researchers specifically searched for only the O'Carroll name, and discounted all other variants, their search of Irish records would fail. Thomas's roots in Ireland might never be found. His parents were recorded in Ireland as Carroll.
The O’Carroll-Sloane marriage in New Zealand may have been missed if researchers concentrated solely on the later spelling variant, as the marriage record shows Thomas Carroll (with no ‘O’ prefix) marrying Ann Sloan (without a silent ‘e’ at the end). Some researchers may have been fooled into suspecting the couple married elsewhere, throwing them off track.
Worse still, his obituary confirms Thomas was a policeman in Ireland before he emigrated, but the only Thomas O’Carroll of the right age, found in the records of the Royal Irish Constabulary, was born in 1838, in Co. Kerry. Our Thomas was named in these records as Thomas Carroll, born in 1837, in Co. Tipperary. This clue might well have been missed, and set many researchers down the wrong path entirely, had their search not included surname variants.
So what if you have a silent ‘e’ at the end of your surname? So what if you spell your name with an ‘O’ prefix, or use 'i' instead of 'y'? Your ancestors at some point probably did not.
So, I’ll say it again, when it comes to researching your ancestors, the spelling of your surname is quite literally irrelevant! Don’t restrict your research by seeking only the exact spelling of your family name now. Be very flexible. Search with every variant. And, if your search initially fails, actively seek out more variants. Check out John Grenham's surnames' website at Irish Ancestors.
Don’t build an unnecessary genealogy brick wall. Irish genealogy is hard enough without creating your own obstacles.
Thank you so much for this great post, Dara. I don't let myself get stuck with surname spelling but there are exceptions. I recently came across the problem with a distant uncle who disappeared before 1880 and "everyone" has assumed he died. I have DNA matches who may prove he had another child after his "disappearance" with a slightly different spelling of the surname: Dempster instead of Dempsey.
ReplyDeleteWow! Dempster is not a variant you'd automatically think of for Dempsey, though it sounds like a nickname he might have been called by other children in his youth. DNA is so great for uncovering all kind of stories. No secrets!
ReplyDeleteDara the same happened with my grandmother annie pepper. Interchanged to peppard. Loving your stories every week. Caroline
ReplyDeleteHi Caroline, nice to hear from you. I think it happened a lot in Ireland with all the different languages spoken, Irish by many of the locals, English by the Officials, Latin by the priests, etc. and as far as I remember Peppard had Anglo-Norman origins, so maybe some French words as well.
ReplyDeleteI hear your frustration. Here in a few counties of Virginia the Shifflett/Shiflett/Shifflet/Shifflette surname is common. Some people like to make fun of the name calling them “Shiftless.” My grandmother has Shifletts in her line but she said they were “ShiPLetts,” not Shifletts. Sure enough one branch uses that spelling but go back a generation and they are all Shifletts.
ReplyDeleteExactly Wendy, it doesn't just apply to Irish surnames, it happened everywhere. Why are people so fixated on the one and only 'correct' spelling? Drives me nuts sometimes!
DeleteI'm applying for my passport now and when I asked for his birth certificate it said his name was Thomas Joseph Rlye. Where I've always known my dad as Thomas Anthony Reil. But same date of birth and same parents and same place of birth in County kerry. I got someone to do research and they found his dad's name is actually Real...I still can't work it out.
ReplyDelete