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From: "Thomas Giammo" <>
Subject: [NOVA-SCOTIA-L] Re: German names misspelled.
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 13:54:24 -0500


John:

I was somewhat surprised to read your last posting that contained an
interchange regarding the practices that should be followed in noting
deviations in early records from a "correct" spelling of a surname. The
arguements on both sides are interesting, but are not really meaningful
since both of them are based on the erroneous assumption that there was a
"correct" spelling of a surname at that time.

People today tend to believe that variations in the spelling of a surname in
early records were caused by the individual being illiterate and thus not
aware that the scribe was "mis-spelling" his/her "true" surname. I've come
to believe that the cause is somewhat more basic than that: at one time,
not too long ago, there was no "correct" or standard way to spell anyone's
surname. One's surname was an oral object, and any written form of it was
an approximation that was satisfactory to the degree that it phonectically
captured its sound. Thus, even in cases where the individual may have been
able to read and write, the fact that someone else recorded the surname
differently was not a matter of any great significance - as long as it
"sounded" right.

This is somewhat the reverse of what prevails today. We tend to think of
our surname as a written object and insist that it be spelled "correctly"
- whereas we are generally more tolerate of a variant pronunciation.

This is not too surprising when one realizes that there was not even an
attempt made to develop a general consensus on the "correct" spelling of
even the most common common words until relatively recently, in
genealogical terms. The first English dictionary wasn't put together until
the mid-1700s.

>From what I've seen in my genealogy research, it was only in the early
1800s in the English speaking countries that the shift to treating a
surname as a "fixed" written object even began. In my own ancestral Sicily
and Slovakia, this stage didn't begin until the last quarter of the 19th
century. (My Grandfather, b. 1862, was completely mystified as to why I
was curious that we were "Giammo" and our cousins "Giambo" . It was the
same name as far as he was concerned.)

Although I have only done a small amount of research in France or Germany,
my work in tracing my wife's Lunenberg ancestry back there shows the very
same patterns. Her Bissett ancestor's surname is recoded variously as
Bissett, Bisset, Biset, Bizet in Nova Scotia (and I've seen all of these
variants
associated with a single individual). In France and Switzerland, I've seen
them earlier as Bise, Bize, and Bizet. On the passenger list for the 1752
Betty, they are Bijet - probably due to the Dutch ear of the Rotterdam
clerk.

Her Conrad ancestors' surname doesn't fare much better. My wife's Conrad
ancestors are Conrad, Conrod, Conraed, and Conrade in the Nova Scotia
records. Earlier, in Germany, I've found them as Conrad, Conrod, and
onrad - again, with the very same individual often showing up in different
records with a different variant. (The German records are especially
interesting in this regard - although the surname was recorded differently
by the various scribes, it seems that it always was identical to the way
that particular scribe wrote the common given-name of the same
ronunciation -
which goes back to my original point.)

Tom Giammo

-----Original Message-----
From: John Helmut Merz <>
To: <>;
<>;
<>
Date: Thursday, February 12, 1998 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: German names misspelled.

>John Helmut Merz wrote:
>>
>> This is in response to a letter, posted earlier to me:
>> Dear ....:
>> Thank you for your reply, but if you read my letter again, nowhere do
>> I advocate a change of an original document. The document stands as is,
>> always. I am talking about lists published by researchers such as
>> Elaine Deion with her compilation of the Bear River Muster Roll. The
>> same roll has been translated before, for instance by Ira Maxwell
>> Sutherland in his thesis "Hessians of Annapolis County", with much
>> better results. He had most of the names right, which means, he took
>> a closer look and most probably counterchecked with other documents.
>>
>> I do not want to pick on Elaine for mistakes in transcribing names,
>> this is a very common affair, perpetrated by researchers not using
>> original documents, but copying from copies of other researchers.
>>
>> What my question was: Should such published lists be amended once the
>> exact and documented correct name has been established. By amended I
>> mean an amendment added to the list pointing out the discrepancies.
>> As an afterthought, would a name found in a German military file be
>> considered the correct name for a Hessian soldier who settled in Canada?
>> Would that not be the correct way to enable family researchers to
>> extent their search to the country of origin?
>>
>> Nobody over in the old country would respond to a name like Nybowere,
>> but they would to a name like Neubauer.
>>
>> And in closing, this is not a project of mine, I have my names.
>> My intention is simple, give those a hand who are stopped dead in
>> their track by the "proverbial brick wall" on account of a wrong name.
>> Regards, John. <http://www.cgo.wave.ca/~hessian>;
>>
>>
>> Dear John:
>> I feel that old documents should be left intact so that future
>> researchers can see them as is.
>> However, I also feel that if someone wishes to post a translation with
>> corrections, I would be delighted to see it.
>> My summary: Leave the old documents as is, but put a redone document
>> with it
>> so that researchers can look at both if they wish to. (In case they
>> want to make sure YOUR translation is correct, probably.)
>> Some of my ancestors were "Pennsylvania Dutch" and I know that
>> eventually I'll be getting into some of the old German names myself,
>> though I don't know where, yet.
>> Good luck on your project!
>> P.
>
>

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