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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2010-01 > 1263331688


From: Warwick Beadle <>
Subject: Re: [S-I] Fw: failure notice -- eh, surnames!
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:28:08 -0800
References: <ecf086b01001121307s1e4e8d6fy74eec7984604f8c6@mail.gmail.com> <1237969182.13031811263331066299.JavaMail.root@sz0165a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net>
In-Reply-To: <1237969182.13031811263331066299.JavaMail.root@sz0165a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net>


I like that tag too! Perhaps he would "rent" it to us.

Hope you had a good 2010 start. Very warm up here in Vancouver, Canada and
only a month away from the Winter Olympics. Went up to +13C at midnight
last night as we in the middle of the "Pineapple Express" (jet stream air
from Hawaii).

It's raining and snow is melting on the mountains around Vancouver but the
Olympic committee is not worried - yet. Further up in Whistler, where most
of the outdoor activities take place, it's still cold and tons of snow.

Regards,
Warwick




2010/1/12 <>

> Thanks, Warwick, and I blew off my afternoon again! Ah well...... And I
> notice I can't spell or apparently use a spell checker !! I fou nd the
> following in the signature of a descendent of some immigrants to New England
> in 1718....He's not on the list. I would steal it but he'd probably catch me
> and give me a well deserved thrashing <grin>. He wrote:
>
> "My E-mail's are a natural hand-made product. The slight variations in
> spelling and grammar enhance its individual character and beauty and
> in no way are to be considered flaws or defects."
>
> ...those aren't warts....those are beauty marks!
>
> Linda Merle
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Warwick Beadle" <>
> To: ,
> Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 4:07:15 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: [S-I] Fw: failure notice -- eh, surnames!
>
> Wow Linda,
>
>
> Your replies never cease to amaze me. I nominate you for a medal in
> genealogy research. Thank you for all your great insight.,
>
>
> Cheers,
> Warwick
>
>
> Tracing Beadle, Haliday, Halliday (see 2 spellings), Horner to name but a
> few.
>
>
> 2010/1/12 < >
>
>
> Hi Sarah, our modern minds tend to think of our surnames and their spelling
> as fixed because we've been brainwashed by generations of teachers to
> believe there is a right and a wrong way to spell not only every word but
> surnames too. Unfortunately this is a modern notion, not taught in school
> rooms of the past. This is assuming too our ancestors were in schoolrooms.
> Actually they were not. Some were in the hedgerow schools, most were hoeing
> potatoes, learning to be blacksmiths, earning livings at a very young age.
> So it didn't much matter what was taught in schools.
>
> Furthermore even if they had a firm notion how to spell their name, the
> magistrate, cleric, or whoever writing down their name to tax them, register
> the birth or marriage, etc., didn't much care about the opinion of a semi or
> completely illiterate farmboy. That farmboy ancestor would certainly not
> have challenged a magistrate or cleric as he had been firmly educated in the
> importance of paying respect to one's betters. They were, after all, in
> Great Britain.
>
> A friend of mine married a lad of Irish origin who was raised in northern
> England. He is not 150 years old -- just 60 or so, yet he was also trained
> to stand aside, remove his hat and look at the earth when his betters passed
> by.
> Almost everyone was better than him. His mum taught him well his position
> in the social pecking order: the bottom.
>
> Whether this is still taught to children there, I do not know. I know my
> middle class English friend who lives in London with his Iranian wife and
> children does not think it strange or insulting that at his children's
> "public school" (private, to us Americans) certain people whose children are
> always much lighter skinned than his children will never, ever acknowledge
> his or his children's existence. I am an American and was raised
> differently, of course, so I would not put up with this stuff but would get
> my child expelled for sure due to my behavior....but our ancestors did or,
> when they got too uppity, they had to make a fast exit for America or end up
> hung from the limb of a tree.
>
> Generally surnames got spelled phonetically -- so you can go by that. Of
> course there were many different accents so one man's phonetics might differ
> greatly from your own!
>
> Usually at the 'start' of a serious genealogical project you must spend
> some time identifying spelling variants so you can be sure to check them all
> subsequently. One way to do this is use IGI -- it'll turn up phonetic
> synonyms.
> However you do find them 'later on'. You keep a list of these and try to
> always check all variants in books, databases, etc....which is hard to do
> consistently.
>
> Regarding the Scottish/Scotch-Irish thang, alas, just 300 years ago our
> ancestors all spoke the same language over there. It was called "Gaelic".
> Before 1600 Scots Gaelic was not different enough from Irish to be called a
> separate language. Ulster was full of Scots back then but these were Gaelic
> speakers from the highlands and islands. They spoke Gaelic just like their
> cousins the Irish. When the Plantation began, some of these guys assimilated
> into the planter population and some into Irish. Some of the Irish
> assimilated into the planter population -- actually LOTS of them did as you
> can tell by the DNA. So the names were the largely the same. People also
> changed ethnic identity. You find English style surnames (place names) that
> were translated into
> Irish and other strange things. A Gaelic speaker who was a blacksmith,
> might be called 'blacksmith' and his
> sons were sons of the blacksmith: McGowan. If someone with such a moniker
> wanted to become more
> Anglo, he became Smith. And it wasn't hard at all to become a McCowan or
> Cowan -- a name presumed to
> be Scots. Ho ho ho.....check the DNA to be sure. You might be surprised.
>
> I'm saying it is not true that in 1621 in Ulster all the Scots spoke
> English and were Protestant. In fact a few of
> the planters were Scots Catholics and brought Catholic tenants over from
> Scotland. It was much more confusing.
> In 1500 all the Scots in Ulster were Catholic highlanders. It was illegal
> for Scots to be in Ireland. The
> English removed you if they caught you or just shot you perhaps. Scots of
> any stripe. No King James yet.
> Scots in Ireland were generally mercinary soldiers for the Irish. You could
> try to convince the English otherwise
> if they caught you....or spies for the Scots gov, and that was as bad as
> being a mercinary. The only good
> Scot in Ireland in 1500 was a dead one and the English would oblige you
> willingly.....
>
> We broke through a multi generation brick wall when I talked my sister into
> going to the courthouse and
> looking for deeds for our dead end ancestor over 50 years. I had read about
> this strategy in a magazine.
> Sure enough, when he was OLD, and not when he first got this land, he
> registered the deed. It was the late
> 1800s and he knew sons would want clear title to this land that had been
> verbally given to him by his dad
> long before. In the deed he named everyone -- father, brothers, cousins --
> anyone who might be alive
> and could swear in court he did own this land and had been given it by his
> father. His father spelled his
> name totally different from our ancestor. They were German. My ancestor
> spelled it Seibert, his father
> Cypert.
>
> If you are not sure what county or state the ancestor's parents were in or
> from, you take cognisance
> of the settlement pattern. In your case, from the north. Check "Old Wagon
> Road". Read county histories for
> clues. Then start looking. Your ancestor might be named in a deed or will
> that was recorded to the north
> any time from his birth till 80 years after it (to cut a broad swatch).
> Build a spreadsheet and start
> checking published abstracts of deeds and wills, esp. anything on the
> Internet as you can't read all the
> deeds and wills in all the counties. They're only indexed by the name of
> the deceased and grantor/grantee
> anyway. You want an every name index. Then you note the names and the
> counties and the records where
> the surname occurs . If that doesn't turn up your ancestor, you can still
> check counties where the surname
> occurs in more depth. But go to a library first and find published, indexed
> abstracts or transcriptions, not the
> courthouse.
>
> If the ancestor arrived as a criminal, indentured servant, or just a poor
> person, you will not be able to find
> information on his origins, most likely. Esp. if he was from Ireland. No
> big deal these days ...... do DNA.
> In the case of one Johnston that I am working on, his DNA is north west
> Irish and he seems to be a dead
> ringer for an Ui Neill family that is known to have taken the surname. The
> immigrant's death record in
> 1852 says he was born in County Down. The father also came over -- he was a
> merchant in the early
> 1800s in western PA (tax records) and I just found out from a deed that the
> father had previously lived in
> Baltimore, Maryland. This is not surprising since they were part of the St.
> Vincent mission in the Derry, PA area
> and many of these people did originate as Maryland Catholics. So now
> looking for a middle class
> Catholic family of Johnstons in Co. Down. This is the wrong list to troll
> for such a family <grin>. But it
> is an example. His daughter claimed he was from County Kerry. I do not know
> where she got that,
> but it is possible that his wife was from Kerry or the wife of the son. The
> wife of the son was the daugh
> of a WM Harris from Maryland (who also settled in south west PA), who lost
> his wife soon after the
> birth of the daughter who was raised by Mother Seton in her orphanage (not
> yet verified). Maybe he was from Kerry......but between the death record and
> the DNA I am pretty certain the Johnstons were not from Kerry !! Maybe dad
> was a merchant there though.....something to check out..... About 1822 they
> bought over a thousand acres in western PA. Not poor people like my
> ancestors. Dad seems to have done well with the salt trade which started
> about 1820 around here.
>
> Usually these people appear as Johnstons but they also are recorded as
> Johnsons. I do know that
> in Kerry in the 1600s you had plenty of McShanes. But by the 1800s you had
> Johns(t)ons and no
> McShanes. Everyone had had their surnames anglicized. The Kerry angle
> appears to have been a
> dead end, but the information is still in the old brain cells and will come
> in handy sometime (I hope).
>
> I had another client, surnamed Melville. Another researcher hadn't had a
> lot of consistent luck with the family
> in the censuses, though they arrived later from Ireland about 1870 or so.
> She failed to look the name up in
> an Irish surname book. The name is also Mulville and Mulvihill in Ireland.
> They were in the census as
> Mulvihill. I asked the client if he'd ever heard this name. No. However the
> Mulvihill family crest was hanging
> over his desk, given to him by his aunt (first generation American). So She
> knew they were Mulvihills.
> The other researcher had told him it was impossible to research family in
> Ireland and to give up, but she
> had found the Irish pot of gold at the end of his rainbow: the marriage of
> his immigrant ancestor in
> central PA that gave the county of origin in Ireland and the names of his
> parents. She was right that she
> didn't know how to do Irish genealogy <grin>. By that time the indexes were
> on line for that county:
> Limerick. I found the ancestor's baptism on line immediately and we had the
> village where he was born
> in Limerick about 1852. The DNA showed he was not related to Mulvihills
> living on the Shannon
> estuary but to the ones in Kerry. Not surprisingly, his family village was
> on the road to Kerry. So apparently
> his ancestors had walked up from Kerry, probably the parents, as they
> weren't married in that parish.
> Kerry records still not on line......
>
> I became convinced that Rule #1 for Irish genealogy is look the name up in
> a GOOD Irish surname book. You gotta do this because surnames were fluid
> among three languages in the last 400 years: Irish, Scots Gaelic, and
> English. By following this simple rule you can become the family hero or
> heroine and be able to plan a trip back
> home next summer to the village where your ancestors lived. If the
> immigrant grandparents of my client
> forgot to tell him they changed the name on the boat on the way over, you
> can bet that we have lost a lot
> of info about our Scotch Irish ancestors, coming a hundred years earlier.
> So we gotta put our thinking caps
> on.
>
> I think all the more recently migrated lines that I have had had screw ups
> caused by bad info: My paternal
> paternal line claimed they came through Canada... how odd when I found them
> (finally) on New York passenger
> list about 1870! These were my great grandparents. My paternal maternal
> line claimed they came in 1892. The ship
> name and city where they lived was provided by a great aunt who was on the
> ship. The ship didn't exist.
> I bet she confused it with a similar name: yup, a ship of that name crossed
> the waters constantly during
> that period and I found them on its ship list. However couldn't find them
> in Glasgow. Obtained birth certificate
> of same great aunt ....duh! She was born in another Scottish county all
> together. They boarded the boat in
> Glasgow. She didn't know where she was born. Very nice lady but not a
> detail freak <grin>.
>
> So a hundred years earlier....man, I'm amazed any of it makes sense let
> alone that they could spell their last name consistently. That was beyond
> their abilities in most cases, requiring concepts (standardized spelling)
> that were generations away.
>
> Andrew Johnson said he had no respect for a man who could only spell a word
> one way. Or was that Johnston? No...I was right the first time.......
>
> Linda Merle
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sarah" < >
> To:
> Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:23:52 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: [S-I] Fw: failure notice
>
> >
> > Hi linda Merle,
> > Wondering if this is true?? I had read somewhere??? that
> > these two were different names.............one Scotish and one Irish or
> > Scotch-Irish-----Have you had any experience with these two names.
> > Casey -
> > Cayce. My line is Cayce of
> > SC and goes several generations back to 1756 The Cayce line connects with
> > the Farmer, Friday, Fleming and Sallis lines in GA, MS in late 1700s and
> > 1800s.
> > Can you shed some light on this family name. His answer doesnt seem right
> > but may be.??
> > Thanks,
> > Sarah
> >
> > Original Message -----
> > From: "Cliff. Johnston" < >
> > To: < >
> > Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2010 8:23 PM
> > Subject: Re: [CASEY] Cayce/Casey
> >
> >
> >> Semi-literate people before the standardization of surname spelling ca.
> >> the
> >> mid to late 1800's for the most part spelled all surnames phonetically.
> >> This meant that if they had an accent that was included too. I've run
> >> into
> >> this with my Johnston/e family. In the 1500's in one county alone in
> >> Scotland I came across a document that had 17 different ways to spell
> >> Johnstone, and none of them included Johnston or Johnstone. It was
> >> considered to be no big deal then as long as the sound of it was the
> >> same.
> >> The advent of passports and other travel documents in the 1800s changed
> >> that
> >> attitude quickly.
> >>
> >> By the way, you missed O'Casey ;-)
> >>
> >> Cliff. Johnston
> >> "May the best you've ever seen,
> >> Be the worst you'll ever see;"
> >> from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Virginia" < >
> >> To: < >
> >> Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2010 7:09 PM
> >> Subject: [CASEY] Cayce/Casey
> >>
> >>
> >>> Does anyone know how or if the 2 spellings of this name came about?
> >>>
> >>> Virginia in Seattle
> >>>
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> >
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