What WAS Your Name?

Robert W. Marlin discusses the problems of tracing your original family name.

Oh, what was your name in the States?
Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates?
Did you murder your wife and flee for
your life?
Oh, what was your name in the States?
Say, what was your name over there?

The words above were copied verbatim from an American pre-Civil War folk ditty. In the 1963 movie How The West Was Won, Debbie Reynolds sang a number of different verses mentioning numerous reasons why people went west after changing their names. The song was sung in dance halls and saloons across America in the mid-1800s. Many members of the audience were immigrant transients who were heading west. They had hundreds of different reasons for their decisions. Many were legitimate pioneers, but many were fugitives. Few cared about their motives or reasons. They simply changed their name and started a new life. The various stanzas of this song simply poked some fun at what prompted them to change their names.

Less than half a century later, a mass exodus of people came to America from all over Europe. Many of these people also changed their names, or in many cases had this done for them at places like Castle Garden and Ellis Island. Part of our job as family historians is to find out what that original surname was and if possible, how it was originally spelled.

Tracing the evolution of family surnames is by far the most difficult part of genealogical research. The initial problems of everyday misspelling are compounded by translation and transliteration of many languages and several alphabets. Add to that the ignorance and apathy of record transcribers and record-keepers and the problem becomes monumental. By the time you factor in the reasons that your ancestor may have had for changing names, the problem becomes almost insurmountable. You must sort out which changes in a surname are involuntary and which were made by the ancestor himself. It was often done because of an irrational fear of being sent back to face charges relating to such things as political crimes, draft dodging or to escape debts.

A significant number of men also changed their names to escape demands for support by wives who had been left behind. Many wives and families were deserted in areas like New York City, while the husband moved on to elsewhere and remarried without the benefit of divorce. They simply changed their name and disappeared.

Some involuntary changes occurred at Castle Garden and Ellis Island where names were sometimes changed by the immigration inspectors. We have all heard stories of how mean spirited immigration officials changed names for the fun of it. Many of these stories are simply not true. The official’s job was to decide whether or not an immigrant was going to be allowed to remain in America. They had little interest in what an immigrant’s name was or what it became. Bear in mind that the majority of immigrants were not able to read or write. Many were not even able to sign their own names. They usually used a mark when signing any type of paper. Naturally, this presented a major language barrier. This barrier was a significant problem for immigration officials.

Ethnic Websites The United Kingdom & Ireland midas.ac.uk/genuki/big/ Scottish Genealogy www.tartans.com Italian Genealogy homepage.interaccess.com/~arduinif Eastern European Family History Societies feefhs.org Irish Genealogy National Archives of Ireland www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy.html

Regardless of the native tongue of the immigrant, many surnames were recorded as they sounded phonetically in English. A name like Bernhard could become Bennet. Koraris became Koris. The variations were endless. At the end of this article I have included a number of websites and several good reference books which deal with this particular problem.

Even dealing with British surnames was a problem. George Bernard Shaw, who once stated that, “the British and the Americans are two people separated by a common language.” If you look at the number of British and Irish names that got lost in the translation you can understand why. I was recently surprised to discover that what I thought was the old Irish name of Monahan was originally Monaghan. You must spend some time establishing what the surname evolved from here in America before you can possibly trace it back to the other side of the Atlantic.

After landing and establishing life in America, there were other involuntary name spellings and changes. Early census takers were instructed to write down what they heard. They were not required to verify spelling of names or accuracy of dates. This was true of state as well as federal censuses.

The Federal census started in 1790 and has been held every 10 years since. Most state censuses were held at 10-year intervals, usually occurring the fifth year after a federal census. In addition, most major cities had city directories which were published yearly and were loaded with misspellings and misinformation. In spite of the errors, we can be thankful that they exist. Without them the job of the genealogist would be a lot harder. Perhaps a few actual examples would be helpful.

My grandmother, Hilda Korris, and my grandfather, Meyer Margolin, were married in New York City in 1904. Their wedding license listed her mother’s maiden name as Pessie Budiansky. The ceremony was performed by Rabbi Meyer Budinoff. The two witnesses were Peter Boudin and Isaac Segal. Later research confirmed that Peter Boudin was actually Peter Budinoff, an uncle to my grandmother. On other papers, Meyer Budinoff was listed as Meyer Budiansky, also part of the same family. I was able to later establish that all three men were originally part of the Budiansky group. To date, this is as close as I have been able to come to the original spelling. Issac Segal had married my grandmother’s sister several years before. The witnesses at his wedding were Meyer Margolin and Meyer Budinoff. Later on, I located the Segal family in the 1900 Census, not under the

Soundex Code S-240 for Segal, but under the code S-245 which included Siegelman. They had voluntarily shortened their name; rarely were names made longer. In this part of my research I found myself dealing with the Cyrillic alphabet, Hebrew transliteration, Yiddish and English.

My mother’s family name was Kruse. This may sound like a simple surname, but this is not the case. To date I have found more than 30 various spellings including Krouse, Kruase, Kruser, Krusemark, Cruse, Cruiser and Krause. The one thing which makes things a little easier is that all records pertaining to my great-grandfather state that his place of birth was Denmark. All of the other Kruse related surnames seem to be from Germany.

Another of my great-grandfathers was Matthia Wild. In the early part of this century he told stories to my mother about escaping from Alsace-Lorraine on the run. Running behind him were Prussian soldiers intent on conscripting him into the Prussian Army. I have been able to trace him back through New York and Boston records to the mid-1870s. He suddenly appeared in the 1874 Boston City Directory.

Any records showing when or how he got to Boston do not seem to exist. After 20 years I have not be able to discover what his surname was before it was Wild. However, I have not given up. Too many times in my research I have made major discoveries just as I was about to quit.

Another family name I have researched is Sunshine. My research has already shown me that Sunshine can be found in censuses as Sanshane, Senschien, Sonschane as well as other similar sounding names. Thank goodness for Soundex, which groups them all together.

The translation of a name from German to English can sometimes be simple, with the surname looking somewhat similar in both versions. However, some letters in the German alphabet are pronounced differently than their English counterparts. Winter in German is pronounced Vinter. Wine is spoken as vine. It is possible for surnames to be listed under totally different letters of the alphabet than you expect.

Suggested Reading & Reference How Our Surnames Came To America, J. N. Hook Ph.D. ISBN# 0-02-552100-4 Encyclopedia Of American Family Names, H. Amanda Robb & Andrew Chesler, Harper Collins. Burke’s American Families With British Ancestry, Genealogical Publishing Co. Baltimore, MD. ISBN 0-8063-0662-9 New Dictionary of American Family Names, Elsdon C. Smith, Harper & Row. ISBN 06-013933-1 Overcoming Obstacles to Eastern European Research, Sarah Allen Fleeury. Jewish Family Names & Their Origins, An Etymological Dictionary, Hemich & Eva Guggenheimer.

When dealing with the transliteration of alphabets the problem is compounded because the other language alphabets do not have a duplicate sound in English. The Cyrillic and the Hebrew alphabets don’t have the same number of letters as the English alphabet. There are letters in Russian which have no equivalent in English. Remember, you are usually only dealing with a few surnames, and therefore do not have to become an authority to figure out a few names. However, due diligence is demanded in order to find what you are looking for.

It is impossible within the scope of this article to provide any in depth detailed information regarding what form different surnames take when translated or transliterated into other languages. At this point it becomes extremely difficult because you are dealing with so many variables.

As an example, my own surname was originally Margolin. The suffix -in is also seen as -ies, -is, -ins, -iot and numerous other endings. The surname Margol means “pearl” in Hebrew. My own family research has shown that my grandfather Meyer left Russia with the same surname he arrived here with.

The bottom line is that discovering all this for yourself is what genealogical research is all about. There are few barriers that can’t be overcome by a dedicated genealogist.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 1999 issue of Family Chronicle.