#52Ancestors Week 15: How do you spell that?

Question

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 15:

Week 15
One of the things I tell people who are starting out in their family history journey is to not get hung up on a spelling. It's amazing how many ways a name can be spelled. (Just visit your local Starbucks, and you'll know what I mean!) Who is an ancestor who might have had trouble with people mangling their name?

*Looks at prompt and looks at last name*

Yeah, I think I know what I'm gonna write about. =)

Comments

I knew you'd write about Ferraiolo :)

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Well, I wasn’t gonna write about Smith. Blog soon.

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See also my post "Spelling Smith in Louisiana."

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Great post, Joyce!

Here's my Ferraiolo blog: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2022/04/52-ancestors-week-15-how-do-you-spell.html

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And thinking of Starbucks, there is Ogdoos Starbuck, father of the wife of my 2 x GU.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Starbuck-796

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With my Italian branch. People can't decide in the records if it's Marchesi or Marchese

Answer 1

Dear Chris,

   I cannot even get folks to spell MY OWN name correctly, let alone my ancestors.   My maiden name, Gahn, is rare.  People often assume it is Cahn, which is more common.

Na - one 'n' - e -two 't's -e  Pe - two 'z's - u - two 't's - i

Answer 2

This is a photo I took Memorial Day 2021 of the headstone for my second great grandfather Luveous Morris. He was a Civil War Veteran, and I have seen his name spelled many different ways. After looking at this headstone for myself, I have decided Luveous is the correct spelling. 

Answer 3

My favourite odd spelling ancestor is

Zebediah Elizabeth (Ward) Cole

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ward-21222

She usually went by Zuba or Elizabeth.

My assumption she was named after the historical person, Zubaidah bint Ja'far, but the name has been garbled many times.

Comments

Perhaps her parents were convinced they were having a boy and couldn't bear to change it. 

Answer 4

RENSSELAER

I have a sign by my desk so that I can spell it correctly. Many of my family members lived in RENSSELAER County, New York. Why couldn't they have lived a few miles further south in COLUMBIA County? I can spell COLUMBIA. Some of them lived even further south in DUTCHESS County, and I usually remember to put the T into that "misspelled" place.

Comments

Dutchess is easy when you know to write Dutch. This is my crib for that.

Rensselaer (two s-es please, moves the cursor to correct it) is more difficult.

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Yes, Joyce, I use those counties a lot too and stupidly keep looking up Rensselaer and always ignore the red underlining of Dutchess.

Answer 5

Don't get me started on this! uh-oh too late

There are 2 very reliable ways to find all the varieties of a name.

1) The Cents us takker.

2) The Sails Person at the' store

Comments

Thanks for the smile.

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My Pleasure Joyce !

Answer 6

Oh boy. I've been working on the family of my second great-grandmother Maryanna Pilarski...at least I think that's her name, as that is the name on her tombstone. She's also known as Marian, Mariana, Marie, and Mary Anna. As seems custom with Polish last names, there's a variety of misspellings used as well, such as Pelarski, Pilarska, and her married name Melczak misspelled as Malzak. Then we have her family.

Her husband Wawrzyn later changed his name to Lawrence. He's listed as Lorenz, Lorentz, Vavzine, and Wawrzon at various points. Her children are even more confusing. I have reason to believe some of her daughters were listed as sons on the 1910 census, including Mariana (or Marie?) who is listed as Lena, Monica who is listed as Matha, and Genevieve who is listed as Goneverta.

Needless to say, this family is awfully confusing to research!

Answer 7

Spent years looking for information on my wife's great grandfather Angus Miller - but should have been looking for Ignace Auguste Milliard. 

And then there was the Thibodeau family spelled Kiah .....

Answer 8

The last name of Stong invites misspelling. 

Most often, it's as Strong, but, when we lived in Virginia in the 1970's, it was Spong because of the then senator.

My wife even has a vanity license plant of STONGXR.

Answer 9

I'm not sure which gives people more problems: my maiden name (Flamer) or my current name (Bramlage).  Other than them, I have over ten spellings for my one-name study of Rowley

Answer 10

My biological father's surname is McFatter, which is rare and often confused for more common surnames like McFadyen. There's two variants that have become standardized -- McPhatter, which is used by almost the entirety of the Carolina branch, and McFather, which is used by the George branch.

Answer 11

So many choices for week 15 but I landed on http://wikitree.com/wiki/Cargus-1.  Marie (Cargus) Streich had this unique surname listed on her immigration record 1861 leaving Brandenburg, Prussia for Ontario, soon-to-be-Canada.  A dear man on Ancestry found it when searching for his own ancestors.  

The thick German accents no doubt confused the local English record takers and they produced surnames Okarns and Roivus.  For years I searched for Mary Okarns and Maria Roivus. 

Later families in both the United States and Canada used a different spelling: Kargus or Karyus. 

Answer 12

This time I went in an unconnected branch of Eckstädts, for which I created profiles immediately when the first bit of Tangermünde records were indexed by FamilySearch. Especially the early records have spelling mistakes like Eckhtadt, Ecletadt, Ectestadt, Eckstadt or Eckstaedt (which is correct when you don't use the umlaut) to name only the ones that appear in the records for Caroline Wilhelmine Sophie Elisabeth (Eckstädt) Hecker, for Johann Friedrich Carl Gottfried Eckstädt and Julie Johanne Auguste (Immelmann) Eckstädt. The records that were later added had considerably less mistakes. Those three profiles are already completed as far as I know, so I couldn't add any more profiles to them (I might be able to add profiles to the complete branch still though).

Answer 13

Sometimes, the names you least expect still have spelling variations... and odd ones, at that! My example? My first married name - Hawksley!

http://www.ourprairienest.com/52-ancestors-week-15-how-do-you-spell-that/

Answer 14

J-A-N-C-S-O

Or is it Jansgo? Or maybe Janscka? If you can figure it out, let me know!
https://familytreesandbranches.blogspot.com/2022/04/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-week-15-how-do.html

Comments

Jancsó is a Hungarian surname derived from a diminutive of János (John); it's pronounced roughly /YAWN-cho/ (second syllable rhyming with "show", but with a 'ch' as in 'church' instead of the 'sh'). It has a few pronunciation variants: Jandzsó, pronounced roughly /YAWN-Joe/, and Janzsó /YAWN-zho/ (/zh/ like the 's' in 'measure'), and the length of the final vowel may or may not be marked (Jancso, Janzso).

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Thank you! That is good information! It makes a lot of sense, too. My grandma was Zuzanna on the ship manifest. She said the 'Z' was pronounced like the 'zs' in ZsaZsa Gabor.

Answer 15

My grandmother's maiden name was Dunkin. About 50% of the historical records I've found on her family mis-spell it as Duncan.

Answer 16

As I have navigated my tree, I have encountered widely variant spellings of family names.  Veeder, Veder, Vedder, and Vader all appear in records.  The van der, van den, van de Bogert, Bogart, Bogaart, etc, variations are endless.   On the other side, Booth and Boothe are interchangeable.  Early spelling was a creative art.

Comments

That's without mentioning my Schwarz ancestors who were named Black, in America, due to the color of my great great great grandmothers apron, according to the family story.

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And what if her apron had been purple?. . . Most people can get the letters correctly when they spell Vander Bogart, but the spacing is anyone's guess. My cousin was Kirk Vander Bogart until he joined the Army, where he was  identified as Bogart, Kirk Vander. So he spelled it Vanderbogart until he got out of the service and made it two words again.

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You are aware that schwarz is German for "black", right?

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The family story is that when the immigration official asked their name, she pointed to her black apron and he wrote down "Black".  They adopted it as their American name.

Answer 17

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Roberts-2

Her maiden name, Roberts, is obviously easy to spell. However, her married name Beauclerk is one of the most unique ones. I did my best to improve the profile.

Answer 18

I've had this issue with my last name (Not in my day to day life, but as I've done family research). I've always known my family name was Griesemer when my ancestors immigrated from the Palatinate, that it was Anglicized to Grisamore as they moved west, and was later simplified to Grismore. I figured that was it...

I was wrong. I've found 15 spelling variations that I've been able to directly link:

• Croismare
• Croixmare
• Greasmere
• Griesheimer
• Griesemer
• Kriesemer
• Criesemer
• Creasamore
• Grisamore
• Grismore
• Greasemer
• Greisamer
• Griesamer
• Gresimer
• Grismer

There are other similar names I don't think are linked (Crismore, Chrismore, Grasmere, and Greemore), but I'm not certain.

Answer 19

Cammal, Lycoming County, PA is a small town/village and it was named after someone misspelled/misheard my family name Campbell.

Comments

There is also a relative that spells their name Lovell, but the first person to settle the area is spelled Lovel.

Answer 20

Pepperman is Fefferman in our area... it gets everyone everytime too .