What about surnames that change over time?

Question

One of my ancestors was named Jermyn.  That surname goes back two generations.  Before then it was Jarmin, then Jarman, then Jarmain, then back to Jermyn.  Should I use the name that was written at the time?  Or keep Jermyn surname throughout?

Comments

Yeah, use what the person in the profile used. If there's no consistent pattern in how they wrote it, or if they were illiterate, which you see a lot, I'd just use whatever seems to be the prevailing spelling in the contemporary records. It's not a good idea to try to normalize it to a modern spelling, since there could be multiple modern reflexes of the same name.

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I believe that I'm writing the profile.  My family was largely uneducated, so I have assumed that the person writing the records decided how to spell their name, which could thus diverge from the larger family without notice, even contemporarily...

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We should not make assumptions about the information that appears on source documents, Robin; at least not those created before spellings and documentation became more standardized and education more widespread.

If you have birth-related documentation, then you should follow that for the Last Name at Birth. However, you should realize that each family member may have a different LNAB spelling. As a result, they will have different spelling in their WikiTreeIDs.

Any surname variations found on later documentation would be entered in the Other Last Name(s) and Current Last Name fields.

Only if you can't find birth-related documentation after a reasonably exhaustive search should you standardize the LNABs for family members.

The main spelling issue with older documents is OUR ability to read them, not whether or not the recorder made judgment calls on the spellings or whether or not the referenced individuals were insufficiently educated to spell their own names.

A related issue is whether or not we have access to images of the original documents or merely to transcriptions and reproductions of the originals. If we have to rely on transcriptions and reproductions, we must accept the probability that they will contain errors.

Answer 1

Hi Robin: As a general rule, I try to list the spelling of the name as it was at the time and then make a notation in the notes of alternate spelling variations.

I've actually found it interesting to note some of the reasons the spelling of names changes. For example, in some cases it is clear that the spelling of the surname changed when someone immigrated. Sometimes it might have been because their name was spelled phonetically, perhaps by someone else who was literate when they were not.

Comments

Yes, name changes might be significant.  In the case of uneducated people, however, clerks write what they think at the time, and, thus, within the same nuclear family, several names are noted in contemporary records...

Answer 2

While many of us get started with genealogy under the working assumption that surnames stay the same, more or less, we often find some point where we are stunned to discover that the last name we thought had 'always been the same' in fact has existed in the form we currently know it for only a few generations. There are a number of reasons that surnames change, often involving 'creative spelling' in bygone eras where spelling was not considered to be something unchanging, and creative spelling was not discouraged as it is today. In addition to that reason, some people only used spoken names and did not write their names, so the spelling could easily change. Every time cultures intersected, spellings could change, and immigrants frequently changed their names when they reached their new homeland.

So to answer your question about which spelling is correct, it's a matter of what era and what time you're looking at. The last name should be used as written at the time--provided that the spelling isn't a misinterpretation of someone reading a written record, and actually is the way the name was spelled at that place and time, for that ancestor.