HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES #5 THOSE ETHNIC SURNAMES and LANGUAGE CHANGES

HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES  #5 THOSE ETHNIC SURNAMES and LANGUAGE CHANGES

Sometimes when you're trying to figure out a surname, maybe it's not coming up on a database at all, you think "something is wrong here."  There is so much on the internet it is indeed rare that a surname isn't going to bring up something. 

Sometimes looking at ethnic surname lists put up by a genealogy society or study group will help.

There are very many surname lists on the Internet, many of them focus on the most common surnames, which isn't helpful if the surname is uncommon.  

Some surnames have changed or been changed and some disappeared as the lineage died out.  

As previously stated, we want to find the meaning of the name in case the person moved countries and changed the spelling of their name due to encountering a new language.  Let's give a simple example, Smith.  Smith could become Smied = the German version.  Smid in Dutch. Forgoron in French. Kovacs in Hungarian. ... (Early Scottish explorers to California during land grant days, who married women of Mexican or Spanish descent on rancheros given by the King of Spain, Spanish-ified their surnames.)

But another example of surname change is when someone adapts the spelling to the new language - English - so that native speakers won't always mispronounce it or stumble over it.  These changes are not always clear and sometimes a name was Germanized or Anglicized in unexpected ways or another person, such as a census taker, wrote the name down the way it sounded to them.  One name that I found good documentation had been changed went from Polish in Russia to German in America.  The original surname had a first syllable Spi. It got turned into Spiegel.  Often thought to be a Jewish name, Spiegel means mirror.  I've also seen it explained to mean spyglass or eyeglass - it has something to do with seeing. The people who changed their name to Spiegel were Roman Catholics.

Using a Google translator may solve the mystery of a surname. Play with the translator with various suggestions, such as German, Polish, Slovak, and see if a meaning ever comes up.  Will it be a trade guild name, an honorific, or reflect the name of a place?

When you go into documents in the 1800's and back, you may notice that the same surname sometimes has one (s) in one version and two (ss), in another. You may notice that f's are used in the place of s's.

Example:  Andrassy.  Andraffy.  Dessewffy.  Deffewffy or Dessewssy.  (Hungarian nobility.)

Y's and J's can also be interchanged... Janko - Yanko (Slovak)

W's and V's interchanged.  Wager.  Vagner.  (Germanic or Polish)

G to J - Gyula - Julius (Hungarian)

Or let's take the evolution of a famous person's name, artist Andy Warhol.  The surname is found in Ruthenian based records in Slovakia and Poland as Warchola.  Varchola.  Warchol.  Varchol. and, finally, his version, Warhol.

Likewise, you may see a name and then it says something that translates to alias, aka, or "from the house of."  What is going on here is that the family's surname has changed because:

1) They just felt like it.  Perhaps to honor a relative or to take on more luster than the earlier name. A person who moved a great distance to where no one knows him or her could do this easily.  (Many a French courtesan during the Paris Belle Epoch days changed her name to indicate a noble past she never had.)

2) The male line died out and to continue it some agreement was made that the female line would continue the name.  (Check out the ancestry of Prince Albert II of Monaco and the family's history of dealings to continue the Grimaldi name.)

3) The name was changed due to an elevation in status by a King or other prominent person, perhaps because of excellent military service.

4) A clan of people, perhaps founders of a nation or early incoming tribes, evolved a number of surnames that over time were used by those descending from the tribe. The name evolves over generations.

5) Someone who long ago had a distinguishing feature such as red hair, thus being called something like Johnny the Red, goes for the surname Carmine or Veres. 

6) An illegitimate child goes by the surname of its mother, until the genetic father or the man who later married that woman informally or formally adopts it.  (Sometimes because people remarried quickly, a woman pregnant by a husband who died remarried and the child carried the name of the father whose house he or she was birthed in.) Or the child remains illegitimate (a legal term - in 19th century it means the child does not have right to inheritance from the father) but is recognized by the birth father and assumes or is given the right to the name. Or the child remains illegitimate, but the mother uses the father's surname anyway.

Surnames are fascinating!

This post is one of a series on the subject.  Click on the tag Surname Help - AWG to get to the posts.

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All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

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HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES #1 PRO GENEALOGY TIPS FROM ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES  #1  PRO GENEALOGY TIPS FROM ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

Have you ever been blocked in your research because you just can't seem to find the person by the SURNAME you have for them in databases?

Transcription and Indexing projects can be helpful but when the original handwriting is bad or the pages are faded or water damaged or the indexer did not have a clue about the ethnic surnames of the heritage/country/language they are working with, it's frustrating. The indexer was well meaning but it can mean hours of confusion for you. There you are, trying to figure out if that letter is an l or if the giant G you see is actually a J, or a T is an F. Frustration that might not be so acute if you were spinning microfilm. 

I say this because I've tried to recreate years of personal research on some of the most popular databases and I can tell you that NO, I would NOT find what I did using microfilm coming up on these databases.  (And in one case the clue I needed wasn't even on a microfilm but on the BACK OF A PAPER INDEX CARD! - which no one noticed when they were microfilming.)

That is why we always want to go to the original source material and see for ourselves what the index or database has taken us to. (And why I fear the destruction of source material.)

An indexer had the chance to properly translate a surname.

You have the chance.

You can use the Internet to your advantage.

I'm sure you've had the experience here on Google of searching for a topic but forgetting how to spell the word or words. The suggestion Google's intelligent search engine came up with makes all the difference because it spelled it correctly for you.  IT OFTEN CAN DO THE SAME WITH A SURNAME.

(I'm also sure at least some of you have had the hideous experience of automatic word corrections doing serious damage to your message - your text.  (I know my defunct cell phone did that and I started to hate texting because of all the wasted time fixing the words to what I had originally intended; sometimes the message still somehow went out wrong.)

This post is NOT to tell you that you should sit there and loose hours of your life, feeling ready to tear your hair out, trying to figure out what an indexer did not, though trying those T's that are J's and C's that are G's does sometimes make all the difference.

So here is my first tip...

USE AN ON-LINE LANGUAGE TRANSLATOR first to see if the name as you have is spelled HAS A MEANING. The translators are not always all-encompassing with their libraries of words and meanings, but this is a first step. You may be surprised at some of the meanings. Perhaps your ancestor went through life being known as Mrs. Dumpling.  Or Mr. Bellybutton.

At the same time, consider that some names, such as Baker, have variations that are close to each other in various languages.

If the surname has a suffix and the translator is not bringing up a meaning, but simply restating it as a word, try that surname without the suffix.

Be sensitive to the suffix as a particular language's way of adding words that mean - of, son, daughter, or some other possessive. This may be your clue to the ethnicity and language of the person and a way of confirming that you're looking at the right documents.  Sure, in some parts of the world there was ethnic mixing going on centuries ago and you may find Italians in Hungary or Scots in Poland. The incoming ethnic people may have slightly changed their name to fit into their new culture.

AN EXAMPLE:

In Polish a ski ending infers masculinity or the father, the patriarch side of the family.  Ska ending infers femininity and the mother, the matriarch side of the family. However, the name may though time move into the ski ending.  Ski indicates eastern slav origins and Sky indicates western sav origins.  

Szke is a Hungarian suffix meaning the same. In in some families both were used or you will notice the suffix evolving.

Ski, sky, vich, iew, ow, dotter, all indicate that somewhere along the line, a person took the original root name and added a possessive.  Which means that you may just find the link between the surnames in a sensible way, because you find the name without that suffix.

The name with an ow suffix may mean  "The man from Krak"  i.e. Krakow.

You'll notice that some possessives indicate a relationship with a person and others a relationship with a PLACE.

When it comes to places and times where people did not have to have a surname because everyone knew who was who in their village or the subculture they lived in within the village, there are two ethnic groups I can think of off hand here in which surnames were recent and did not stabilize for some time, and there was no need for legal name changes.

More on that in the next post!

This post is one of a series on the subject.  Click on the tag Surname Help - AWG to get to all the posts.

C 2022-2025 Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

image from Graphics Fairy

EAST GREEK OR WEST ROMAN CATHOLIC AND ETHNICITY : POLAND GENEALOGY

Earlier I mentioned that you might think a person to be Polish but discover a person had a Ruthenian, Ukrainian, or other ethnic identity. You may also discover in your search for archival documents that there are religious records and duplicates called "city" or "town" records - Civil Records. You may notice the start date on these is about 1860 - compliance was not immediate. What happened is that Priests were told to make duplicates of parish records of births, marriages, and deaths to be submitted to government so then these second sets got called Civil. It's a good thing because two handwritten copies meant more survived. However, I've noticed the year dates are not always the same between church and civil as if some records were lost. You may have to look at both.

I recently had an experience that made me question previous research that went to a date I was seeking for a baptismal. Not finding it, I decided to read every page of marriages, taking notes by hand. And there I found a selection of dates out of order. However, sometimes the civil copies are more readable since an effort was being made to copy.

Some collections are clearly from Roman Catholic parishes and others are clearly Greek Catholic. Also called Eastern Orthodox, in archives and databases I see "Greek." Generally there was an implied ethnic difference in religion. Ruthenians tended to be Greek Catholics or Uniates (accepting the Roman Catholic Pope but following their own rituals, saints, and calendar). They also tended to be living closer to the Carpathian Mountains or where the eastern part of Poland was, about where Ukraine is now.***

But take the following into consideration:

Ruthenians had three sub-ethnic groups or tribes within their ethnicity. The most familiar to us today are the Lemko and if you're looking at records for Village up close to mountains or mountain passes. they are probably Lemko.***

Then, the Ruthenian people had their own language but back in the day when few people went to school - girls were often not sent at all even when their family had means - just about everyone was multilingual, especially because these were Slavic languages and had many similarities, they could understand each other. (German would be the most popular language after the Slavic.) In market and trade towns very many languages were spoken. Some documents are in Latin, German, or French. Or Ukrainian, which is the only one I panic about due to Cyrillic alphabet.

Last but not least, there were marriages between people of different faiths. And it's not clearly recorded. I suspect priests might have felt that if a person was being baptized, married, or buried in their church then that's enough to claim them. I've seen one note in a Roman Catholic record that says "This man comes from Ruthenian lands."

So here are some clues which may help.

The first is the given name of a child. Children are often named after a saint because of the day they were born that honored that saint or thereabouts - so you'll see a lot of girls who are baptized in a Franciscan run Roman Catholic church named Rose/Rosalia after Italian Saint Rose of Viterbo in early September. There isn't much diversity of names or honorifics of parents or family in Polish records. Children chose a Confirmation name that might honor a parent. (And use that as a middle name.)

When you get to names such as Basilius, Anastasia, Demeter and Tatiana you're probably looking at a child who has a Greek Catholic heritage, at least one parent because that name honors an Eastern saint. I've found these names in Roman Catholic records. They don't just sound Greek. They sound Russian.

Second, you'll find certain settlements had substantial populations and separate churches but others required travel.  It might be easier to just go into the closest church. 

Or, home births with family or midwives being the common way, a baptism could occur after birth and people might not make it into church, staying up in the mountains.

Third, you may find you do have to move over to Greek Catholic records and into records of other countries so it's worth checking into in any case if a village that figures into your heritage had a Greek Catholic Church. 

Interesting to me is that Polish Roman and Greek Catholic records and Jewish records record the name of the midwife which I feel is part of a testimonial such as, "I know who the mother is. I delivered the baby." Midwives did baptized babies after birth. (Anyone can.) Notice any pattern on day born and day baptized ? The same day might mean baptized at birth.

A question of the Ruthenian ethnic identity has existed for hundreds of years, a controversial subject for sure. They are considered to be of the country from where they lived. (i.e. Russia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania....)

But if you know someone who is Ruthenian, ask them how they wish to be identified.

Here is the last but sometimes most important thing. There may be a ten to twelve day difference in the dates from the Eastern, Julian calendar that was the old calendar begun by Julius Caesar and used until 1582 throughout Europe and the Gregorian, begun by Pope Gregory used by most of Roman Catholic Europe. So basically if you're reading records of the Eastern Orthodox or Greek Catholic Church, read the dates forward and back of the date you're targeting.  (Many of you are familiar with the difference in when Christmas is celebrated.

***

So, the three groups of Ruthenians are the Lemko, who are usually found in Ukraine,  Poland, and Slovakia. The Hutsels, usually found in Ukraine, Romania, and Bukovina. And the Boykos, usually found in the mountains of Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary. Ruthenians are also called Carpatho- Rusyns, Kiev Rus, Eastern Slavs, Uniates, Belarusians, and mostly Ukrainian...

If you learn you're Ruthenian or are simply intrigued to know there's an ethnic group you never heard of, you may find the nation's first cultural center in the Pittsburgh area.

They bought Saint John the Baptist cathedral.

NATIONAL CARPATHO-RUSYN CULTURAL CENTER

PASSENGER ARRIVALS FROM WHERE? ETHNIC IDENTITY VERSUS BORDERS #4

Today a region once called Galicia is in Poland, but Galicia, ruled as part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, now would be parts of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. But on a ship manifests a person with these ethnic identities might have left "Austria."

Basically, you've got to research the history of war and politics. Be niche specific. Get out your maps. Look at borders. Remember borders as we think of them today weren't so official or supervised. It could be that a road was blocked but people traveled through the woods or well known farm roads. Try not to get that genealogy myopia that would have you think people couldn't move, travel, or live past a "border" be it a city, county, or country. Don't think that certain ethnic groups wouldn't deal with each other because you'll find that there are stereotypes to bust. Ethnic and religious intermarriage, for instance, did happen. 

I'm communicating this because people using passenger list databases sometimes disqualify a listing over ethic identity or location.

We also need to research the changes in the names of settlements, some which have had three different names in a short lifetime. More obscure even with today's maps on the Internet that zoom, are tiny settlements that back in the day locals knew as farmsteads.

I once searched a half dozen paper and on line maps looking for a location an immigrant gave as the place he left, which appeared on a ship passenger list. In 2020 a Polish genealogy site listed this habitation and to my surprise hundreds of people lived and died there over a hundred years with about a dozen surnames repetitive. Yet it was not on these maps. At another location however, on another map listed a huge Communist Era "commune" named after one of these families. Today I understand this place must have been like - like a vale of hobbits* and only one decided to go on an adventure to America! Finally I found a reference to it in a text, basically alluding to it as a fork in the road. Maps often have some criteria such as listing only places that have a population of, say, 500 or more.

With change of place name also comes the difference in the way a place is spelled and how it's pronounced by a native speaker who also has a regional accept and may also speak a "high" or "low" form of that language. Great Grand Ma kept saying she was from a certain place but you can't find it. (It turns out she was naming the biggest city, not her suburb! Kind of like what some men do to state their football team preference as Boston Celtics so you think they're from Boston when they're from Massachusetts.

You've got to run that place name past a native speaker.

Along with ethic identity, consider the reportage. I've seen so many manifests where it seems men are ghettoized by an ethnic identity or assumption. Hey, maybe they stuck together the whole trip. But maybe not. I wonder.

I can imagine these men having conversations. Why they're traveling. Where they left and where they're going. What kind of work they're seeking and who is waiting for them. Giving advise on trains, boarding houses, and employment. Who has an unmarried sister who needs a husband? I also see how immigrants helped each other, some brothers, some brothers of a different mother, I think we today could envy the friendships they made.

C 2021

*Hobbit as in Bilbo Bagging.

HER DNA SUGGESTS RACE AND ETHNICITY - WAS IT MARRIAGE OR RAPE? : QUESTIONS FROM READERS of ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

Question for Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

(Please note that this person showed me her results and asked me to interpret them.)

My genealogy research takes me back to Southern Poland and parts of what is now Slovakia, Hungary, and Ukraine. I know this was the Austrian Empire, but my ancestors always had their "ethnic I'm" as these ethnicities. I'm showing Asian ancestry on one side and Near Eastern ancestry on the other. Percentages would l be about one sixteenth of each - so that would be great great grandparents - right? Is this the end of my standard paper trail research?  Please comment.  Thanks.

G.

Answer from Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

Not necessarily.

First remember that all results are statistically based and dependent on all the people who have chosen to contribute their personal data to that particular company's results and that stats are reworked based on an ever-growing number of considerations. Also, as more understanding of genetics and DNA comes forth, it can get more specific - such as what tribe (be that Native American or Native European - so to speak). Sometimes this information can lead us past a block.

One sixteenth could be a great great grandparents. We each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and sixteen great-great grandparents. However, it could be some other combination such as four of the thirty two great great great grandparents. Or some small strain in many ancestors that adds up.

Today many people simply feel American or Canadian or British - or whatever - though only one of their lines show that. Other people relate to an ethnicity or way of life - including attitudes and lifestyle - that they may be criticized for adopting because there is no biological evidence for it.  (This is one of the reasons I think sometimes that a past life experience is why.)

As for the paper trail - standard genealogy - it is always worth pursing even if it is at odds with the DNA or genetic results.  However, the notions that genealogy will prove generations of marriages - chosen and happy marriages - or unite a fractured family are myths. People may have lives that were more controlled or regimented or limited than we have come to expect as Americans, but there were still affairs and there was rape. Rape is so common that I doubt there is anyone alive who doesn't have some DNA as a result of rape.

Some areas of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine, experienced invasions and occupations that included murder and rape. I suspect you will not likely find church or temple records going into the 19th or 18th century that reveal that. You might want to read about the Tatars, Mongols, and Ottoman Turks.

In my years as a genealogist, I've rarely found notations in records that expand on the explanation of illegitimacy, for instance. (Once in a while an understanding priest wrote in "father in America" or something about a death before marriage - alluding to a romance or plan to be married when the unfortunate happened.)  It's so sad to me when I find a woman in the records who had one child after another without a father and see how soon those children died. I always wonder if she was a woman repeatedly taken advantage of by men in the village - perhaps an orphan or someone born without average intelligence - someone who might have been forced into prostitution.

A W G

C 2020 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy Blogspot

DNA ANTHROPOLOGY - HUMAN ANCESTORS INCLUDE NEWLY FOUND SPECIES

We intermingled with Neanderthals and Denisovans - but now we learn there was more mingling with yet another species...YAHOO NEWS - ANCIENT HUMANS INTERBRED WITH ARCHAIC POPULATION 7000,000 YEARS AGO

Can you believe that God created everything and evolution?  I do.  Perhaps God's plan was evolution.  I recall from an anthropology class I took in college that about 40,000 years ago there was enough of a human population for ethnicity to develop.

EXCERPT: Scientists already knew that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans 40,000 to 60,000 years ago.  But a new study reveals that the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans also interbred with a mysterious population of ancient humans i Eurasia much earlier"  700,000 years ago.

ARE DNA TESTING COMPANIES GOING TO GO BUST? SEEMS THE DNA TESTING BOOM IS OVER

YAHOO FINANCE : ONCE HOT DNA TESTING article by Daniel Roberts

Excerpt: It isn't just 23andme. DNA tests went boom in 2018 with the number of consumers who had bought one doubling to 25 million, now sales have gone bust.

MIT Technology Review estimates that the largest DNA test players sold just 4 million to 6 million DNA tests in 2019, an industry growth rate of 20 %, the slowest year for the industry ever.

*****

I have never done my DNA and to my knowledge, neither has anyone in my family.  These companies and their owners have gotten rich, but the aspect of privacy invasion and your data no longer being yours (after about 20 years but currently for the use of law enforcement) is also in my opinion an aspect of the decline in interest.  Further while DNA can help you if you're truly blocked, sometimes it's impatience or amateur genealogy that's the issue.  Currently I have a friend who is stuck due to a common name and reportage of birth place different on three different census in the 1800's.  I told her I've seen death certificates from the 1940's and before in which children do not know their mother's maiden name.

CHILDHOOD WITT and SAYINGS a PART OF FAMILY HISTORY WRITING

A new friend and I started reminiscing about all the things our parents said to their children when the children were playing creatively or rough. We were watching some other people's children throw sand in the air and yelled and that sparked the conversation.  We didn't want anyone's children to get sand in their eyes or ears. The children were having such fun though. They proceeded to go exploring on a big mountain of compost.

My friend said his dad used to yell "Don't run with a spoon in your mouth."

I recalled that in my childhood home there were a lot of ways to "break your head open." These included racing up stairs and around swimming pools, swinging on the swing set too high, and well, just about all dangerous activities.

We agreed though that today's children are overprotected, and making them wear helmets to ride bikes and plugging up electric sockets, for instance, makes for the implication that they are fragile and (too) precious.

My friend and I compared notes and decided that though we are of the same generation and the sayings we heard growing up to warn us of danger and injury had seemingly not made it all the way to the next state.

Childhood wit and sayings that are part of your upbringing ought to be included in your family history writing. They tell the story not only of your generation but of race, class, ethnicity, of generations - of time and place. They will certainly sound odd to future generations.

C Ancestry Worship Genealogy 2019  All Rights Reserved

WHAT YOUR NOSE KNOWS

CNN: YOUR NOSE SHAPE and CLIMATE by Susan Scutti, CNN


It's exactly as we suspected, our noses do reveal something about the climate that our ancestors lived in.


EXCERPT: They selected people from four populations: North Europeans, South Asians, East Asians and West Africans. Shriver and his team looked at 3-D photos of each individual and examined the width of the nostrils, the distance between nostrils, the height of the nose, nose ridge length, nose protrusion, external area of the nose and area of the nostrils.

THE HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE by NELL IRVIN PAINTER : BOOK REVIEW by ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

I've been reading NELL IRVIN PAINTER's book "The History of White People" which is Copyright 2010 and published by W.W. Norton and Company. I'll be sprinking this blog with excerpts from that book here and there.

This is the story of European slavery ("Whites enslaving Whites"), class in Europe and America, which included indentured servants and slaves, and the notions of who was more worthy.

There was a progression of early theorists who decided that being low class had everything to do with intelligence and character as genetic; the "imbeciles" and "morons" and "the unfit" were the target of sterilization for the good of society. ( I note: This is the danger of genealogy motivated by snobbery!)

Painter does an excellent job of reporting the notions of race or ethnicity as individuals are considered to be of more or less worthy because of these notions. Racism was inherent in the descriptions of Europeans as "Nordic" or "Alpine" or "Mediterranean" as determined by physical features rather than country of origin.

This book may remind you of your own bad experiences or what your ancestors experienced because of their origins.

Perhaps they were considered of subnormal intelligence and not up to decent jobs because they were Italian or Slovak?

Are you yourself still experiencing intolerance and prejudice based, not on your character or deeds, but because of your ethnicity?