Genealogy Chat

I have family members whose surnames have changed over the years eg born Drumman, but Drummond when married etc. How would you put them on your tree? With their birth name but with a note added to say 'known as'? I don't know how they will match up with other trees if the same person is entered with different names. Any advice appreciated!

Julie It's a pain, isn't it. I've just put in the 'settled' (ie modern) version, but notes that they were known as, or it says on marriage cert, but on death cert etc. I have Mealing family who are also known as Maling, Mealins and Mellins. Chowns, Chounes Smoothy/Smoothey etc. The further back you go, the less likely it is that your rellies would have written anything, so you may have just someone else's version of what they thought they heard in the first place. On one census in a village I've found every Emma recorded as Emmah and every George are Goerge! Presumably the enumerator was marginally less literacy-challenged than the others. nell

I guess if people are doing a search they would search all variations on the surname as we all have names that change depending on the census or certificate. For example with Flanagan - I would check Flanagan, Flannagan, Flanaghan etc and just look if any of them match up, so I wouldn't worry too much. Or if there is one variation that appears more often than the others, use that one.

Thanks for your help!

I usually try putting the birth version in. If you end up with several versions of the surname on GR, that's hardly a problem because it means you're more likely to field contacts from the different versions. e.g. (for me) WARR WAR WOR Christine