Immigration Officials Changed My Ancestor's Surname - Myth or Fact?
One of the first things I learned when I began
researching our family history is that surnames are subject to change.
When tracking a particular branch of the family it is important to keep
an open mind when it comes to the spelling of a name. According to
research done by my husband’s aunt, his family name Holmes was once
Homes, and I discovered that my mother-in-law’s maiden name, Talbot, was
spelled Talbott, a number of generations ago.
When researching my great-grandmother, Effie Backus, I’d be overlooking
possible connections if I ignored the alternate spelling “Baccus”. With
my mother’s maiden name, Glandon, I’ve found data listed under a number
of spelling variations, including Glendin.
Don't Blame the Ellis Island Officials
Immigrant name changes have long been attributed to officials at Ellis Island, who reportedly shortened, misspelled or Americanized the immigrant’s name. Yet, that claim may be more myth than fact.
Name changes definitely occurred, but for the changes I’ve uncovered in my family, they had nothing to do with the immigration officials. Consider our family’s Talbot. My husband’s Talbot line came to America in the 1600’s and their “Talbott” remained intact for five generations after their arrival, when finally they dropped the last “t” from the name.
Starting a New Life
Our ancestors, living in the moment and not necessarily considering the genealogical ramifications of surname changes, were sometimes caught up in the idea of starting a new life in a new country, and changed their own names, for a variety of reasons. My mother-in-law’s family from Sweden were originally named Larson, yet her grandfather changed the name to Heyman after coming to this country. According to my mother-in-law’s aunt, Heyman was for their estate named “Heyde”.
To make the matter more confusing, the grandfather’s children used different spellings, some using Hayman and others adopting Heyman.
I have one friend whose immigrating ancestor didn’t want to use his long and ethnic sounding Polish surname in his new country, and dropped all but the first four letters of the name.
Breaking Tradition
We have a cousin whose husband’s surname is actually his mother’s maiden name. This wasn’t because his parents weren’t married, but because his mother didn’t have any brothers and they wanted to carry on the family name, and his father agreed to take his bride’s name.
Surnames don’t just leave the breadcrumb trail for genealogists, they provide intriguing anecdotes and insights into the human side of our ancestors.
On the back of these photographs are the inscriptions, "Grand Father Hayman" and "Grand Mother Hayman." Yet, a line was drawn through each inscription, making me wonder the actual identity of the couple. It is possible the person writing the inscription was partially correct. If these were the paternal grandparents of my mother-in-law's mother, the couple was Larson. The change from Larson came with three of their six sons who changed their names from Larson to Hayman (and Heyman) after coming to the United States as young men. While the grandfather came to America for a while, he returned to Sweden, according to a letter written by his granddaughter, Agnes Heyman (my mother-in-law's aunt).