Proposed LNAB change for Thomas Cissell-217 : Cecil or Cecill?

Question

This profile of Thomas Cissell was the subject of a G2G thread earlier this year:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/858131/euroaristos-requesting-expert-review-controversial-cissell

As Thomas was the son of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, it would seem logical to change his last name at birth to Cecil. However, in every document which I have found about him, his surname seems to have been spelled with two Ls (apart from the 1847 book about the Cecil family by Chapman - this and all other examples below are cited on his profile).

His entry in the baptism register has him as son of Sir Thomas Cicell.

His marriage is as Mr Thomas Cecill Esq

His son in law names him as executor of his will in 1637 : Sir Thomas Cecill

His burial in 1662 : Sir Thomas Cecill

Which surname should Cissell be changed to? Cecil or Cecill?

The Visitations of Northamptonshire spell all the family's surname as Cecill. 
https://archive.org/details/visitationsofnor00harvrich/page/78

In which case, should all the other Cecil profiles already created be changed to Cecill (or AKA Cecill)?

Answer 1

As it is Last Name at Birth unless he was baptised as an adult his baptismal name will be closest to his birth name.

However, Cecil is the name most commonly associated with this family.

Comments

The spelling in the baptism record is clearly an aberration. For this period - and later - that happens.

Answer 2

I would go with Cecill. It's mentioned in the visitations, it's mentioned in his burial and in his son-in-laws will.  It supports a majority of actual records, rather than just the family lore.

I would personally add "other last name" as Cecil as well, or adding a line in the bio indicating all the variants that occurred in the records during his lifetime. If there are records that confirm his parents have different spellings, that could be referenced with the parents  / siblings, but it depends how deep you want to go with this.

My two cents, anyway.
Raewyn.

Answer 3

And here is my two cents.  I have Cecil and Cissell ancestors.  In general, I find that the name evolved from Cissell to Cecil for some branches, and for others remains Cissell to this day.  

I don't think that, in an age where spelling was not standardized, we can ever say for certain how a person's name should be spelled.  I have often used the preponderance of records to determine the spelling I use, but it seems to me that rather than change names back and forth on WikiTree, it is better to use the "Other last names" field to add variants.

(And same goes for Cecill.)

Added later:  I was speaking more generally (which didn't really address the question!); there were other Cecils and Cissells around besides that one famous family.

Comments

For this family, it has to be either Cecil or Cecill in this period.

Answer 4

Just call them all Cecil.  They're a famous family, and they're famous as Cecil.

Anything else is just a pointless irritation to readers.

Yes we know it's a convention.  But many things are conventional.  There are good reasons for having conventions and following them.

Otherwise, we're following a rule which is

- peculiar to WikiTree, but there's no good case for WikiTree to have peculiar rules

- not "more correct", as there is no "correct"

- pretentious and embarrassing, like, everybody else gets it Wrong but we know better

- unworkable.  Luckily most people haven't yet realized that medieval spellings are standardized in books, or the whole pre-1700 area would have been trashed by now.

Comments

Jillaine, there is no 'last name at birth' available for most pre-1500 profiles and I don't know that pre-1500 naming practices need an official exception, I think there is just a general acceptance that there aren't the type of records that we use to work out an appropriate name for post-1500 profiles.  There are virtually no baptisms, no birth registrations and often nothing we would recognise as a modern surname even it those records did exist.

What contemporary records do exist for the time periods are as you said, Jillaine, extremely fluid with their spelling, and the same person can have their name spelled a number of different ways even in the same document.  Adding to that is that most of these original records, at least in Europe, were in Latin, and although I have never seen anything official on WikiTree, I think there is a general understanding that we don't want to use Latin unless it's as a quote.  An extra added complication is that there was probably a high degree of illiteracy and most of these original documents were written by scribes, so we can have no idea at all how the people might have named themselves.  You can get seals attached to documents because this was effectively their signature.

Consequently names of pre-1500 profiles tend to use the modern equivalent vernacular language of the area in which they lived/reigned, though even that can be difficult because of the shifting boundaries between countries throughout much of European history.

I think it is still the case that all pre-1600 profiles should use the European Aristocrats naming standards and the basic standard is that where possible the LNAB should be the dynastic name even though these are often modern constructs and wouldn't have been used by the person in their own lifetime.  If dynastic names aren't known then it tends to be a geographic name and again these are often modern equivalents.

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Jillaine, I think you may be misreading me. I am not seeking a general change of approach. This is a fairly unusual set of circumstances.

The only direct record in this instance for LNAB is the baptismal record, which is clearly to be disregarded, and WikiTree guidance explicitly allows for that.

As I have said in previous comments, for less famous families, like my own forebears, I would seek to use the most common contemporary form of the name (though that is not always easy to determine - I have one 17th-century individual among my Cayley forebears who signed his name in at least 4 different spellings, a 2-page official record in which his name is spelt three different ways, and a burial record which gives yet another - and rather odd - spelling). I would draw on birth records where available, while recognising that parish register spellings can be peculiar.

Here we have a very prominent family where the baptism record gives a spelling it would be silly to use, where there appears to be a degree of variation in the contemporary spelling of the name, and where there is a norm used outside WikiTree, including in genealogical works - and which has been followed in all the other Wikitree profiles for the family apart from the children of Thomas who currently have the LNAB Cissell. My own reading of the WikiTree guidance is that it allows some leeway in these circumstances: you, I suspect, will disagree.

Shall we leave it at that? I do understand where you are coming from, but I am afraid we are not going to agree.

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I see you East Coast and UK people have been arguing for hours already before I even got up here in California.  Just a couple questions and comments from someone who is basically an outsider in this discussion (even though I may be the only Cecil/Cissell, and contrary to my statement yesterday, I now see that a Y-DNA analysis--not done by me--suggests my line is related to Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter).  Also, I am admittedly less knowledgeable and experienced regarding WikiTree policy and practice than the others here.

 

Michael, if indeed you and Jillaine do "leave it at that" and are not going to agree, does anything get decided?  Does Jo get an answer?  What is the process for deciding?

 

The arguments that not spelling the name "Cecil" would make it harder for people to find profiles isn't persuasive, as any WikiTree search appears to bring up spelling variants.

 

And I had to laugh when I read the comment that WikiTree was described as "off-puttingly cliquish" on the internet.  I don't think spelling differences are even in the top five or so reasons that WikiTree might be seen by some as off-puttingly cliquish.  But so what?  Is the internet--which is full of inaccurate, unsourced, and even stupid trees--to be our standard?

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G2G is a place where one can ask advice and seek views on issues like this, but is not a decision-making forum. I think Jo has made the decision: for Cecil, which is what most of us who have been involved in the discussion advocate. She has posted a comment to this effect on Thomas's profile.

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... and remember, Julie, there are lots of non-WikiTree members who find their way to WikiTree profiles not through the WikiTree search system (which picks up some but not all spelling variants of names) but through Google searches and the like.

BTW none of us are suggesting using internet trees as the standard. I am sure you realise that.

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Yes, now I see the comment but I'm not sure how posting a comment on a profile informs those trying to follow a G2G thread.  As to process, I hope Jo is working with the England Project which manages the profile, but she did not mention that.

And of course I was not suggesting that we use internet trees as our standard.  I was pointing out that if we want to be different from everyone else, then introducing the idea that some people consider us different into a discussion is pointless.

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Jo is a Project Coordinator for the England Project.  She looks after project-managed profiles for them.

She stated the name change on this thread 20 hours ago.

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Well, yes, she said it "should be" Cecil, but I mis-read that as part of the ongoing discussion rather than a conclusion, and she hasn't changed the surname on the profile.  My mistake. Thank you for the explanation.

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Just a little note on this family we are talking about… Thomas Cecil (or Cissell, Cecile, Cecill, Cisel) was the son of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter and the grandson of William Cecil, Lord Burghley.  I remember being in a university library looking up IPMs (back when you had to do that sort of thing) and being struck by this row of books taking up multiple shelves of something called the Cecil Papers.  What I was looking at was just the index to the Cecil Papers which is a collection of the personal papers of this family with over 30,000 documents taking up over 150,000 pages from the times Elizabeth I and James I/VI.  They have been called a “national treasure” and invaluable for understanding Elizabethan culture and government.  The Cecil Papers have served as the basis for 100s of books and doctoral thesis papers.

When RJ says they are a famous family and famous as Cecil, this is what he means.  This family, in this specific time period, was historically and culturally significant.  They are extremely well-known to historians and written about by historians and always with the name Cecil.

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Thanks, Joe. Archivists, writers of genealogical books, academics, bibliographers, librarians and countless books of history all use the form Cecil for the family in the Tudor/Jacobean period. It would be odd in the extreme, and WikiTree against the world, for WikiTree to do different for a family of this importance.

Answer 5

There is no single correct spelling, so, as some others have said, it is best to use the name by which the members of the family are usually known - Cecil - with other forms given in the other last name field. What is in the baptismal record should not be decisive for this period - and I have seen baptism entry spellings for surnames of this period that are substantially wrong and must have reflected what the clerk thought he had heard. Not to use the form "Cecil” as the LNAB will just make life unnecessarily difficult and confusing for some researchers.

Comments

There IS a single spelling used by members of the family from the generation of the subject's birth. Cecill.  People searching under Cecil will still find it.

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I am afraid I am entirely with Joe Cochoit and R J Horace on this. I will not repeat the arguments. And anyway the way the guidelines are worded makes it clear (to me at least) that they implicitly recognise that on occasion some flexibility may be needed.

I had hoped you might find some comfort from the fact that there seem to be some contemporary records which use the Cecil spelling.