A Masonic Connection

In my last post I showed some of my newspaper finds amongst death, funeral and probate notices, and the details they could provide.  In the case of two of my ancestors, they also led me to the discovery of some Masonic connections I had previously been unaware of.

When my great great grandfather John Clark passed away on June 11th 1894, his family placed a notice in The Age inviting friends to attend his funeral.

Directly below this first notice was another, inserted by the Brighton Union Lodge, inviting members to also attend John's funeral.  Until I found this notice I had no idea he was a Mason.

When his son, my great grandfather James Nicholas Clark died in 1924, similar notices were placed.  Which is how I discovered James was also a Mason.

The above notices were published in The Age, Friday 8 February 1924, page 16.  Like his father, James was also a member of the Brighton Union Lodge, and the Lodge placed a funeral notice alongside that of his family.  Note that in the Lodge notice has his surname listed a Clarg - spelling errors can never be discounted.

What's in a Name?

From church records to birth, marriage and death registrations, census records to electoral rolls and passenger lists to immigration and naturalization records, many of our favourite sources for family information have captured a variety of spellings, handwritings, and abbreviations.  As those historical collections have been digitized and transcribed, modern day technicians have struggled to correctly interpret and preserve an entry from long ago, and subsequently we as researchers have struggled to find them.

If there is one thing I have learnt in my years of researching my family, it is that NO surname, however simple, will EVER be recorded with the same spelling all the time.  When researching, always consider how a name may have been misspelled or incorrectly recorded.  Remember that the clerk creating the record spelled the name the way he felt like spelling it - how it sounded to him at the time.  And frequently he got it wrong.  Sometimes he got it spectacularly wrong!

Abbreviations can also complicate research - William was often abbreviated as Wm, Thomas as Thos or Tom, Patrick as Pat or Patk or Patr, Daniel as Dan or Danl or Danny, Margaret as Maggie, Elizabeth as Beth or Eliza.  When searching for an ancestor, be mindful that an exact search for a given name may unintentionally hide an ancestor from view if the original record or transcription used an abbreviation.

In addition to alternate spellings and abbreviations, another source of name variations comes from errors made during the transcription process.  As people transcribe family history records, they seek to preserve content exactly as it appears in the historical original.  Despite best efforts, errors do occur and names can be unintentionally altered.  Consider how old handwriting may be misinterpreted - both by you and by earlier transcribers or indexers. 

Some databases are quite flexible in regards to spelling variations when searching, but they will never cover every possible error and sometimes several searches are necessary to locate an elusive record.  Remember to be creative and keep digging - you never know what you might find - or how it may be spelled!

Misspeld Knames — A Commun Probblem for Reeserchors

During the classes held at Campaspe Regional Library during Family History Month, a common comment from those attending concerned the spelling of names, and how inconsistent they are.  This lead to quite a discussion about spelling variations and how they can complicate our research.  From church records to birth, marriage and death registrations, census records to electoral rolls and passenger lists to immigration and naturalization records, many of our favorite sources for family information have captured a variety of spellings, handwritings, and abbreviations.  As those historical collections have been digitized and transcribed, modern day technicians have struggled to correctly interpret and preserve an entry from long ago, and subsequently we as researchers have struggled to find them.

If there is one thing I have learnt in my years of researching my family, it is that NO surname, however simple, will EVER be recorded with the same spelling all the time.  When researching, always consider how a name may have been misspelled.  Your family may have always spelled their name a certain way, but you can bet that those who actually recorded their names - the census takers, clerks, tax collectors and so on - didn't.  The clerk creating the record spelled the name the way he felt like spelling it - how it sounded to him at the time.  And frequently he got it wrong.  Sometimes he got it spectacularly wrong!

For every surname in my family tree, there are at least 3 spelling variations that I have come across during my research, and the more exotic the surname, the more spelling variations I have encountered.  There really isn't that much you can do with Green (Greene, Greyne) or Clark (Clarke, Clerk) but my mother's maiden mane is Pummeroy.  Spellings - Pummeroy, Pumeroy, Pumroy, Pomeroy, Pomroy, Pomrey, Pumfrey, Pomfrey.

Try researching a German name like Beseler.  It can have one s, two s, change the s to z, one l, two l, drop the middle e, change any e into a, it changes into Sezler with all the variations as well.  Several family members also changed their Christian names around the time they emigrated to Australia as well, so Friedrich became Frederick, Johann = John, Susette =Susan, Elizabetha = Elizabeth, Margaretha = Margaret or Mary, and so on.  They certainly made my research challenging.

Abbreviations can also complicate research - William was often abbreviated as Wm, Thomas as Thos or Tom, Patrick as Pat or Patk or Patr, Daniel as Dan or Danl or Danny, Margaret as Maggie, Elizabeth as Beth or Eliza.  When searching for an ancestor, be mindful that an exact search for a given name may unintentionally hide an ancestor from view if the original record or transcription used an abbreviation.

In addition to alternate spellings and abbreviations, another source of name variations comes from errors made during the transcription process.  As people transcribe family history records, they seek to preserve content exactly as it appears in the historical original.  Despite best efforts, errors do occur and names can be unintentionally altered. 

Some databases are quite flexible in regards to spelling variations when searching, but they will never cover every possible error and sometimes several searches are necessary to localte an elusive record.  Remember to be creative and keep digging - you never know what you might find - or how it may be spelled!

Hear Names

One of the biggest challenges in genealogy is overcoming the spelling of names. As your family tree goes back in time, spelling becomes more uncertain. Part of the problem lies in known spelling variations for certain names (Smith, Smyth, Smythe, etc.). The main problem, however, is that historically many people did not know how to read and write.
Names that were said out loud were often mistakenly written down in a different format. Knowing the proper pronunciation of an ancestor’s name can therefore be a good starting point in trying to decipher how it may have been written down on an old immigration form, a census record or a parish record. But what happens if your ancestor was from Finland or Croatia and you don’t know how to pronounce names in these languages?

Enter Hear Names. This is a website dedicated to the pronunciation of names from around the world. You can either type in a name and it will tell you how to pronounce it or you can search for names by language. Over 25 different languages are listed on the website. Hearing the proper oral pronunciation of a name is a good starting point for trying to reverse engineer how a name may have appeared in written format on historic documents, such as immigration forms.
Hear Names continues to be built out. The authors have informed us that new names can still be submitted to add to the database.
Thanks to Genealogy In Time for highlighting this website.

What's in a Name?

At least for purposes of research, just about every genealogist rues the ancestor whose last name is common, and therefore hard to trace, and rejoices in their ancestors with more unusual names. While an unusual surname undeniably can make genealogical research easier, it doesn’t corner the market on interesting and informative origins.  In Western Europe, surnames first came about in Medieval times as civilizations grew larger and it became necessary to distinguish between people.
Sometimes, names were based on occupation: a blacksmith may have been “John le Smith” (John the Smith) which became, over the generations, “Smith,” and a person named Appleby lived by or tended the apple orchard. Celebrity Robin Leach’s ancestor was probably a physician (because in medieval times, physicians used leeches to bleed people). Actor Christopher Reeve’s ancestor, the one to first take the surname, was most likely a sheriff, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s early medieval ancestor probably tended a park.Other surnames were based on location: an Acker, which comes from “acre,” lived near a field, and a Hall lived in or worked in a hall of a Medieval nobleman’s house. And it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what a forebear named Young or Strong or Gray looked like.Higher social status surnames are more rare today — how many Rothschilds (from the German “red shield”) did you go to school with? — and lower status ones fairly common. Lower social status people were also sometimes given unfortunate names by others, such as “Tew” (Welsh for “fat”) or “Dullard,” which means a hard or conceited man.And in many parts of the world surnames derived from men’s names. A person named Robertson is descended from someone who was the “son of Robert,” and a MacDonald is from a Scottish “son of Donald.” Armenian names of this sort generally end in “-ian,” Polish ones in “-ski,” and Irish ones are put together a little differently, starting with the prefix “Fitz-.”In Spanish-speaking parts of the world, people often take both their mother and father’s surnames. And some families still use family or “house” names that are not surnames at all, like the royal Windsors or Plantagenets.Asian surnames have different stories. Most of the approximately 100,000 Japanese surnames in use today only date from 1868 and the Meiji Restoration, when surnames were mandated for the first time. There are just a few hundred common Chinese surnames, and 20 of them (which reflect an entire clan or were adopted by nobles) are shared by half the population. There are about 250 Korean surnames, three of them comprising almost half the Korean population, and just about 100 Vietnamese ones, with three making up 60 percent of all names in that country.More than 2,600 members at the UK-based Guild of One-Name Studies devote their genealogical research to about 8,400 “one-name studies,” meaning they study everything known about a particular surname, whether the people they research are related biologically or linked to other family trees they are studying. Focusing in on a family surname can be a useful way to break through a genealogical brick wall, and most guild members are easy to reach and willing to share information (generally they ask, in return, for you to share your data on a name).
My own ancestry is a mix of very common surnames (Green, Clark), slightly less common (Argent, Pike, Hart, Mulholland) and some more unusual ones (Pummeroy, Beseler, Farckens, McGoverin).  Each presents their own challenges.
Thanks to Ancestry for their blog entry on surnames.

52 Weeks of Genealogy - Week 13 - Personal Names and Surnames

Shauna has chosen Personal Names and Surnames as her topic for Week 13.  Her blog advises us to have a look at the given or personal names in your family tree. Are there any unusual ones or names handed down through the generations? What about unusual surnames? Why not investigate the origins and history of the names and learn more about the times in which they lived?  If you have a really unusual surname then it may be useful to have a look at the Guild of One Name Studies. There are over 2,600 people researching over 8,400 surnames and their variations.
Looking back through my family tree, I quickly notice a number of given names that occur again and again through the generations, and even within one family.  In my Green family a few generations back I have three Isaacs in one generation - the first two died young and the name was reused for the next son each time.  Eventually persistance paid off and the third Isaac Green in that family lived well into his 90's.  His father was named Isaac as well, and the name crops up in several other generations.  In my mother's Pummeroy family William and Alfred are popular, and recur several time across the generations.  This can create an additional challenge in making sure any information I find is linked to the correct person - I have a newspaper article from Trove that mentions William Pummeroy - and I have four of them alive at the time that the article could be referring to!
The Pummeroy surname itself is quite unusual, especially our Australian spelling which occurs nowhere else.  I have spoken to other Pomeroy / Pomroy families that link to ours back in England (there is also a One Name Study group for the Pomeroy name) but our spelling is unique!  So any other Pummeroys out there - please contact me.  My mother's family surnames also includes Beseler - a nice unusual name which comes from Germany - and more common names like Clark and Mulholland.  On my father's side the surnames are more traditional - Green, Argent, Pike and Hart are my great-grandparent's surnames.
Visit Shaun's blog on Personal Names and Surnames to read her full entry on this topic.

Surname Meanings

If you have ever wondered about the origin of your last name, you will find your surname may answer one of the questions of where your ancestors lived, what they did for a living, what was their personality like, or how they looked many hundreds of years ago.

In Europe, the first surnames were first used about eight hundred years ago. People developed individual surnames which, over time, became names that were passed down from generation to generation. Check the free Dictionary of Surname Origins and Last Name Meanings.

Onlinenames

Free online name listings including: Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, United States, Wales, Zimbabwe and world-wide one-name studies.

Online names is a free searchable database managed by Adelaide Proformat and compiled from public submissions. It has been available since 1997. The site has been upgraded since 8 June 2011 and many new features are now available.  While still small, the site is well worth using and will only grow if people take the time to post the names they are researching.