Have you ever wondered about your last name origins and where your family came from? Have you wondered about the meaning of your surname? Or simply have you thought about your pedigree?
Many people who are searching their family trees pedigree for their origins have found relatives that share a similar sounding last name but it's not spelled exactly the same. We need to be open minded when we are looking for our name meaning origin. Sometimes the difference is as simple as a single "t" becomes a double "t" or a vowel is dropped from the surname. There are many reasons for these phenomena.
In some cases the last names were changed simply because most people could not spell. It is only in the last century that people have been educated. Schools were available but parents could not afford to send their children to school when there was work to be done on the farm or in the family business. Searching for your origin or pedigree using government census data uncovers numerous errors in spelling because the census taker was not sure of the spelling of the surname and simply wrote the name as it sounded. The person being enumerated couldn't read well enough to know that the names were spelled wrong.
In other cases the family found that, when they left their country of origin and moved to a new country, the spelling of their name was too difficult or the name had a different meaning for the locals and they decided to simplify it. Unlike today, where governments regulate and control their constituents, it was easy to settle in a new community and tell everyone that your name was "Jones" not "Rothstein".
Still other cases of name changes may be as simple as trying to avoid being traced by your country of origin where you were being oppressed or persecuted for their religion or nationality. Sometimes, emigrating from your country of origin was the only way to start fresh. Taking on a new family surname with a different meaning, was easy compared to the effort required to pack up everything and take a long voyage across the ocean.
Tracing name origin or pedigree is time consuming but also very rewarding. Naturally, start any searches with the familiar spelling of your last name. Once you have gone as far as you can go then it is time to try other alternative names. As mentioned above, try removing or adding consonants and vowels to the surname without changing how the name sounds. Search for all these new names, with the same meaning, to see if any relatives are uncovered. If that fails to find your potential origin, it is time to get really creative.
My family name is "Kearns". I can trace the pedigree of this surname back to it's origins in Ireland in the middle 1800s. Searching though Irish genealogy websites brings you to web pages that offer surname histories as well as listings of names that are common to the region. Follow these leads and you may uncover the meaning and other spellings that are not immediately obvious. In my case, "Kearns" is an offshoot of "Kerns", "Kieran", "O'Kieran", and "O Ceirin" (as well as a number of other names). This may create a list of names to try and trace as well as the region's land, marriage and death records that may help you find that long lost branch of the family tree that you are searching for.
To tackle the problem of finding your last name origins make sure that you review all the books and scrapbooks that your family has treasured over the years. Check with relatives to see if they have Bibles or other keepsakes that might reference other spelling of your surname or origins that are different from your own. The more you search, the more you will likely uncover that pedigree name that has eluded you for so long. Once found, the meaning of that name will lead you to all sorts of additional family names that you can add to your genealogy research.
