Who are wind family

Question

My surname is winn,after years of looking up family ancestry I have found many branches from my ancestry with different spelling of winn,further back the surname was winde / wind.but who are these people and why change wind to winn. I have found a Thomas wind born 1839 mother been pallister in the district of chester le street.if I am correct thomas father was john wind who changed the name to whinn then winn.Thomas was married to Hannah parker.

Answer 1

I think this is where the "other last name" field comes in. People change their names all the time, but we want to connect the lines in a family to each other.

In such a case as you describe, I would use Wind as the LNAB if that was the name his parents used, then add Winn in the Other Last Name field. If children were given the name Winn, I would use that for them as the LNAB.

This way, searches for either spelling of the name should bring up both spellings.

Answer 2

Hi Nigel. I have started a Winn/Wind surname project to follow these issues among other Winn/Wind problems. We have found that there are lots of reasons for name variations, please check the page. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Winn_Name_Study.

BTW, Winn is not the only name that has changed over time for the same reasons - accents unfamiliar to those recording the name etc etc.

Mostly the name variation can be that the parish clerk/priest or whoever who was most likely NOT from the area and was trying to interpret the name as spoken by folk that have quite different/broad accents even within a county or parish. The folk getting a baptism in those times were rarely literate so were unable to correct the written name.
There are now I believe, several origins to the Winn/Winds of both yours and my family just within Durham county. It can be a name derived from a location eg a winding lane "Wynd", or a windy location, or even after the odd "lord" with a surname similar. BUT, mostly it seems to be interpretation of a spoken name, that was simplified over time. Remember that some the Durham Winn/Winds may also have a Netherlands origin, something I am still researching. I see on both your and my line Winn>Wind> Winde and Windd. Some records are even in latin that further complicated the issue.

BTW, be careful of the William Wind born 1731 line. As I mentioned, there are TWO William Winds (Lamesley and Lumley).

As noted in the other answer. I am using surnames and other names as they appear in Baptism/Births with Research Notes if needed to explain the variation. I have found some where the only "fit" is a baptism of a slightly different variation to say a marriage or for children. Confusing, but we are making progress.