What would be the preferred surname spelling for this man?

Question

Geoffrion-8 and Joffrion-29 are duplicates set as an unmerged match while we research the surname. Can anyone help?

Answer 1

Joffrion is the correct form of the name per his baptism.  It's one of those names that get spelled either way, phonetically.  Entered data and sources on linked profile.  His first wife needs her name fixed up also.  And her mother.  (sigh)

Comments

Thanks Danielle. Yes, the surnames of relatives need fixing. (sigh)

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fixed up the location names also for this end of things on it.  He had a son also from his first marriage, unaccounted for here.

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Thanks Danielle.  Always avoleasure to collaborate with the Québec project!

Answer 2

Whatever the earliest source says. Hopefully you have a birth or baptismal record. Usually I would just go with the first spelling, and if it changes over time, then put it in as a later change of surname. Unless however, you believe that it is possible that the name was spelt wrong or transcribed wrong in the first source.

Answer 3

FWIW, I found this listing for Joffrion at https://www.avoyelles.com/#J. There was no entry for Goffrion.

Avoyelles French Family Name Origins

Avoyelleans: French Creoles

This Avoyellean Family page was created on Sept. 12, 1996. The information on this page was originally published in the Marksville Weekly News in 1995 along with a map of France showing the locations of the some of the French surnames of Avoyelles. In 1999, during the Louisiana Tricentennial, this map and short history of the names was distributed to 19 towns in France during a tour of French ancestral towns. A group of Avoyelles descendants traveled by bus and were warmly welcomed back by town officials in all nineteen of the stops on the tour.

Joffrion - Pierre Joffrion, was the first of the family to migrate from France. He came to Canada. Pierre Joffrion was born 1644 at Fontenay le Comte, Poitou, France, 110 miles due north of Bordeaux. Ira Couvillon wrote that oral history told to him by old timers in the early 1900s was that the Joffrion family migrated together at the same time with the Couvillon family from Canada to Louisiana.