How to find ancestors, with different names?

Question

Okay, this will sound bizarre but, myself, and my sisters were born under one spelling of our family name: Hinderliter. My father was listed as a Hinterliter. My grand-father came to the United States, presumably under the name: Hinterlichter. This, those dopes, at Ellis Island changed, when grand-father came to the U.S. My question is: If the U.S. government has changed the spelling, of a family name, multiple times, then HOW can a person even try to find their roots, when they dont even know the original spelling of their name? Can on-line ancestry searches even work, when a current family name is nowhere near the original spelling? How can I search for my ancestors when my name is totally different from the original name? Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Welcome to the club. One of my ancestors came to the USA as Heinrich Kesselberg and died Henry Casselberry. He and his sons used one from list "A" and one from list "B" in every combination during their lives



A:

---------

Kessel

Cassel

Castle



B:

---------

berry

bury

berg

burg





I have found Pack relatives as Pack, Park, Peck, Pick, Pock, Puck, Pok and Pork.



If people spelled consistently the sport would be as boring as "fishing" at a trout farm - the places that feed the fish until they weigh 10 - 14 pounds, then put them out in the public pool and stop feeding them. You pay by the pound and they guarantee you'll catch something, usually on the first cast.



"Totally different" would be a change from "Zimmerman" to "Carpenter" during the anti-German fervor around World War I. ("Zimmerman" is German for "Carpenter".)



How you try is the same as anyone; one generation at a time, verifying as you go. Any genealogical search engine worthy of the name has a soundex option. It is the default on the LDS mega-site. You have to select it in Roots Web and Ancestry.



As an example of my own success (brag, brag, brag), I was hunting for Henry Monebrake and his wife Catherine in the 1880 census.



I found them, after trying:

1) Henry Monebrake

2) Henry Moneybrake

3) Catharine Monebrake

4) Catharine Moneybrake

5) Henry Monebraker

6) Henry Moneybraker

7) Catharine Monebraker

8) Catharine Moneybraker

9) Monebroke

10) Moneybroke

11) Monebroker

12) Moneybroke

13) Moneybroker

14) All Catharine (regardless of surname) in Ohio with birth year 1800 - 1820 and head of household Henry

15) All Henrys in Preble county born in Germany 1800 - 1820



My 16th try was any Catherine in Preble County (regardless of surname) born in Germany 1800 - 1820. I found them in Washington Twp, Preble, Ohio:



(Name, Relation, Marital Status, Gender, Race, Age, Birthplace, Occupation, Father's Birthplace, Mother's Birthplace)



Harry Monnebraker, self, M, Male, W, 74, Pr, Farmer, Pr, Pr,

Catherine Monnebraker, wife, M, Female, W, 64, Ger, Keeping House, Ger, Ger



Have fun!

Answer 2

You are thinking in "today's box"..where a name is right/wrong and always the same, and the computer handles it for us.

Get out of the box. Your ancestors (and probably the ministers/ clerks, etc) were probably illiterate or 3rd grade education. They could not spell.. but they were completely sure that this woman is their sister (who by marrying, changed the name again). What I am trying to do.. is stop you dead in your tracks, and open to alternate thinking. Open thinking is where you find ancestors/ relatives. Open thinking puts you in different places, different times.. and HOW THEY DID THINGS.

The internet is only 30-40 yrs old. Before that.. people went to the courthouse, pulled down the index book, and looked at every entry on the page that started with the letter H. If they know grandpa was born between 1900-1920 in Omaha.. at least they had a date range. Records were not on any machine.

Now that I've got you tossing donuts at me, and ready to give up.. I'll tell you the trick. You HAVE TO use records.. you HAVE to start at a known point, and build a chain from the known point. You are the first known point, and your birth certificate is a record to PROVE (yes, proof is critical) your parents. It shows that you were born in (say) 1980, and dad was named born in 1940 in Michigan. Mom was born 1945 in Okla, and notice..she has a birth name that you use.

If they are living.. your next step is to get their birth certs, and since they are living, it won't be online (live persons should not be on the internet). You might run into mom being a Jones, then worry about all those Jones. Nope. You are not hunting all Jones. You are hunting the birth cert for Jane Jones born in Okla in May 1945. You are FOCUSING on one person, in a certain location at a certain time. And you are looking for a birth record.. not a website. And you aren't expecting the computer to find it for you. You are looking for records (and it won't be limited to birth certificates). You might close your eyes, and say a hard name in your mind..and imagine all the ways that someone could mess it up..as they will. Then you open your eyes, and look for something even close.

Name errors (not always "changes") are totally standard for genealogy. Once you know and expect this, you work around it, and you also are using your imagination, not necessarily the computer. Your record might be grandpa's tombstone (since he probably didn't have a birth record). Using that.. you might go visit, find that he was born in 1890, and came to the US at age 15. Do the math. That is 1905, and you now can try to find an immigration record. Grandpa "could" be on findagrave.com, or you might have to ask aunt Sally, get in the car and go read the stone yourself.

Having said all that.. if you want to see it in action.. click on my avatar, go to my questions, look what I asked a month or two ago about Carl Moser (my questions are open). Go through the whole thing. I got huge results by posting not just the name, but dates, as well as exactly what I was hoping for. It was amazing.. and I have 30 yrs experience, but people here helped me totally.

Bottom line..urban legends in genealogy are that you must use the computer/ "best website" and you are looking for a surname. No to both of those. That isn't genealogy.

You absolutely can.. and will.. find them, and much more. You just need to toss out the mental limitations of how it works.

Answer 3

Very few non-English names were changed at Ellis Island and the "Government" doesn't change spelling of names, people might-especially if the writing is difficult to read. I understand your frustration, but if you are using Ancestry.com then use the Soundex mode of research. If you are using one of the other multitude of sites check for a soundex mode of search and use it. If you have no idea what Soundexing is, I suggest that you type Soundex systems into the search engine and learn about it as it is a very common method of filing used by government agencies. If that doesn't work e-mail me, I might have a couple other ideas, I've been working with non-English names for a long time, plus dealing with letter sounds and how people hear (Smith became Smeeth, became Smyth became Smyith.)

Answer 4

The government itself didn't not change the name. Spelling of names were changed because immigrants wanted to keep the original pronunciation and, for instance, how we pronounce vowels and consonants in English is not how it is done in German.



Also many names were changed down through the ages as clerks would write a name down as to how it sounded to them.



On Ancestry.Com I know you can look up a name by exact spelling or a soundex method. I don't know if this is true of all websites.

Answer 5

I did a trace one time for a friend of my sister's who knew absolutely nothing about his ancestors. By the time I got back to his 14th great-grandfather, his last name had gone from Schwenk, to Schwink, to Schwank, to the current Swank. The people at Ellis Island were not dopes--they just spelled foreign names the way they sounded to them.

And if the immigrant didn't know how to spell, how could he give the officials the correct way??

My mother's maiden name has several variations in spelling. These are from familysearch.org: KOSTEN ; COSTIN ; COSTON; COSTEN ;

COSTINE ; COWSTANCE ; COUSTANCE ; COSTAIN ;COUSTAN ; COUSTEN ; COUSTANE ; COUSTON ; COUSTEIN ; COSTIENE; COSTEAN; COSTIAN; COISTON ; and COUSTONE--to name a few of the 237 people listed.



Even the most common name in the world--Smith--has varied spellings: SMID; SCHMIDT; SCHMITT ; SMYTH; SCHIERSMIT ; SMIT ;

SMIDT; SMEDT; SCHMID; SCHMIED; SMITT; SCHMITH ; SMITS ; and SMIDS. A character on my favorite soap opera spelled it as SMYTHE.

Frontiersman Daniel Boone's surname went from BOONE to BOON to BOHUN to DeBOHUN the farther back you went.

Just chalk it up to the fact that different parts of the world spell the same name different ways.