by Nothing can drive a researcher more insane than names that aren’t spelled correctly. The insanity quickly deepens when you realize that not only are names spelled wrong, but they are spelled inconsistently wrong! The task of doing a thorough search for a single person often involves using variations of the spelling of their name. This is especially true with foreign language names. German, Italian and French names were often spelled as the writer thought they should be.
Sometimes the names are spelled correctly but – for whatever reason – a person’s middle name is used in place of their first name. This is found frequently on census records. For instance, my great grandmother Sarah Francis Tinkham (Crosby) appears on the 1871 Canadian census as Sarah Tinkham. When she was married in 1874 she was recorded as Sarah Tinkham. However, on the 1881 Canadian census she was recorded as Francis Crosby. In 1891 Sarah re-appears. Although I was relatively sure Sarah and Francis were the same person it wasn’t until her death certificate was located that the name dependency could be put to rest. On her death record both names appeared. Sarah Francis Crosby, daughter of “Benj. Tinkham” died at age 99.
Death Certificates often provide a great deal of information. However, it is important to realize that the validity of the information is based on the “informant”. The informant is the person that supplies the family information for the certificate. Often times the informant was wrong or, due to the stress of a recent death, wrong information is given by accident. For this reason any information provided by the informant should be corroborated. Death Certificate information will be a future topic.
Newspapers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are notorious for spelling names wrong. I use the Trenton Times on-line historical archive to search for information. I searched for my great-grandfather Sturley Garrison several times with little success. Then one day I stumbled across the name “Sterling Garrison”. Searching for Sterling led to many more articles and eventually led to the discovery of his and Adline’s wedding day. The article about their 50th wedding anniversary not only listed the date of their marraige, but provided an inventory of their descendents: “14 Children, 30 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren”.
Alternate names may throw a monkey wrench into your research but often times they can lead to other discoveries. They need to be watched for because sometimes subtle bits of information are what lead to connecting aliases with the real name.
