Before adding Profile - I need advice for last name

Question

Dear Treefolk,

the wife of Johann Heinrich Post (he was born Kutten / Kreis Gumbinnen 9 Dec 1729 and baptized Judtschen 14 Dec 1729; see: Post-4584) ist Maria Dorothea, but I do not have a birth or marriage record for her and her last name is spelled very differently in the baptism entries for her 5 children: Letzinski (1755), Loschintzki (1756), Leschinski (1759 and 1761), Lutzinski (1763) and Letzinsky as a godmother in 1757. In the family tree written around 1940 and handed down to me, it is spelled Leschinski (and presumably it was originally a somehow Polish name like Leszczinski or Leszinski or something like that).

Before building her profile (I want to connect her children and their descendants for whom I have church book entries) I wanted to ask how to proceed with the last name at birth - any advice, please!???

Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Welcome to the exciting world of genealogy source evaluation! It's not uncommon to encounter variations in names and spellings when researching historical records, and developing an evidence-based supposition is a crucial part of the process.

Though there are variations in the spelling of the last name in some records, "Leschinski" appears to be the most frequently occurring version among the available sources.

However, as with any genealogical research, it's important to document this educated conjecture (as a Research Note) and continue exploring additional records to further validate and refine the conclusion - making changes later as needed.

One other thing you can do is evaluate usage here on WikiTree. For example, try out each of the variation at https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/name-here (e.g., https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Leschinski). This will give you an idea of the usage on WikiTree and help you formulate your assumption. You can also do this on other sites, such as FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/en/surname?surname=Leschinski) or Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=Leschinski). What you are looking for is the prevalence of records. This will help you with your assumption.

Note:

(and presumably it was originally a somehow Polish name like Leszczinski or Leszinski or something like that).

Leszczyński / Leszczyńska is highly probable:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszczy%C5%84ski
• https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Leszczynski

Comments

Hi Steve,

thank you - that's what I thought, I just wanted to get some other opinion's - so I will go with simple majority. Because she was Lutheran when she married her reformed protestant man, the pastor did not care to write down her name but only that she was Lutheran. And of course the Polish versions are highly probable, but that is only a conclusion - which cannot be proven in any way -, so I think for now I stay with one of the versions I have and put the rest in the "Other names" and the research notes :-)