When I got married … er, 27 years ago … I considered keeping my maiden name. I liked my name – it was part of me and part of my heritage.
Genealogy has opened my eyes to a whole world of names that are also part of me and my heritage. Here are a few names that have come up with my genealogy research: O’Brien, Jordan, Stearns, Brown, Diamond, Bowman, Bowerman, Kerrigan, Byrne, Colburn, Murdock, McMahon, Tydenman, Jaycox, Wing, Swift, Clifton, Dillingham, Smith, Dalrymple, McCarthy, Frazier, Stewart, Machias, LaGrave, Paine, Garwood, Minchinton, Cooke, Winterton, Therryn, Emighe … and on and on.
That puts a whole new spin on my inner turmoil about whether I should have kept my maiden name, doesn’t it? I don’t feel so conflicted anymore.
Free Genealogy Guide
January 30, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Family research really does put names into perspective, but the whole custom of just dropping a maiden name upon getting married makes a lot of things more complicated when looking for certain ancestresses.
Jim Sanders
January 22, 2012 at 9:57 am
In Genealogy there are a lot of spelling mistakes, nicknames and spelling abreviations. When trying to find your ancestor you need to be aware of these. You may also need to know how to find them in an index when this occurs. Check out the blog about names and genealogy. It offers a number of suggestions on how to perform some searches when this happens.
Regards, Jim