Tracing Family Trees Through The Records

Ginny Jackson

It is a well known fact that not everyone is great at keeping records. There is no exception to this rule when it comes to tracing family trees. Some of the most vital resources for tracing family trees are immigration records and census records. Unfortunately even these public records can be innacurate or misleading in various ways. Here are a few things to be careful about when you trace your family trees.

One of the true bane of a family tree research is misspelled names. During the height of immigration to the United States immigrants numbered in the thousands if not the millions during times when records were kept manually. These masses crossed the ocean to make a new life in the United States. Passenger names were recorded in the ships manifest prior to the ship departing port. Upon arrival in the United States, inspectors took that manaifest and compared it against the people waiting to enter into the United States. Therefore a common myth that people changed their names or spellings at Ellis Island is not true. Those changes or alterations most likely occurred during the naturalization process.

One common item to watch out for when tracing family trees is that the spelling of names changed but not how the name was pronounced. For example a name as common as Stevenson was often misspelled a number of different ways including Stephenson or Steveson. The legal idea of Idem Sonatum was actually the cause of many of these changes, not an attempt to confuse later descendants. This legal concept said that if someone could promounce their name in the same manner as the name on a document they could then establish a connection to the document. This was powerful and oftentimes spelling of names was changed rather inadvertently to something that would be a little easier to spell. This knowledge will help you in tracing family trees because you now understand the importance of looking for variations in the spelling of the name you are researching.

Taking A Place Name became an option some chose upon their arrival to the United States. Not all new arrivals to the United States kept their name upon their arrival. Some people changed their name as a sign of rebirth to a new country. Some people used place names for their new name. This might be the name of a coastal area, city or town or maybe even the name of their birthplace. So when you are doing extensive genealogy research and encounter a name that seems to have a gerographical sound to it, remember what you learned here about place names.