Spelling petersen

Profile manager: Dwight Petersen [send private message]

My ancestors in the petersen family had varying interest in how the name was spelled. My father reported that he was told the spelling "pedersen" disappeared by fiat of some immigration clerk. {I recently (February 2016) found the list of passengers on the ship that J. A. V. (William) and Maren (Mary) Pedersen arrived on. On that list the name is spelled petterson.} I also know first hand that my grandfather's wife was the arbiter and enforcer of the "sen" version. Further, I know that grandpa's brother spelled the name with an "son". When I visited the graves of William and Sofia I found the name spelled "sen" for William and "son" for Sofia. My father explained that when William died the family members who bought the headstone used "sen". When Sofia died, the family members who bought her headstone spelled it their way. However, neither group chose to use the original Danish spelling with a "d". This variance in spelling extended into my generation too. My cousin Jan Petersen, after using the "sen" spelling for much of her early life found her father Earle had spelled both her and his name on her birth certificate with the "son" ending. Her siblings all had birth certificates using the "sen" spelling. There being an amiable contention amongst the descendants over who spells the name correctly, and since I spell it "sen," I will take the opportunity to point out that after looking at many thousands of Danish archival records, I can testify that "pedersen" is the most common spelling, and "petersen" is somewhat less common, however, I have yet to see a single instance in Danish records of the name being spelled "peterson". On August 11, 2017, I interviewed Peterson-4473, my first cousin once removed. When we discussed the spelling of Petersen/Peterson he said that he had asked his father about why he used Peterson. His father's response was that he just got tired of correcting the spelling and decided to use the spelling Peterson because most everyone spelled it that way anyway.