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Donnell = Daniel?

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 685 ✭✭✭FURET


    I should point out that I've just discovered the marriage record of a James Daniel in 1868. This man is listed as a James Donnell in the baptismal record of his firstborn a year later. And on his headstone, the inscription reads O'Donnell.

    To further muddy things, his name is given as O'Donnell in the transcription of his 1868 marriage certificate on FindMyPast - this is the same marriage where he is handwritten as James Daniel. His father's surname is listed on the marriage certificate transcription as O'Donnell, which tallies with a Griffiths Valuation record from 18 years earlier also giving his father's surname as O'Donnell.

    Yet the father has a different Forename in James's baptismal record than in his marriage record. Very confusing!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,186 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    This would be a situation where I'd be willing to proceed but with extreme caution. Surname spellings really only got locked down in the middle of the last century - there's many cases mentioned on here of varying spellings between the two censuses.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    It did not really matter how the individual spelt his own name, if literate. The recorder, whether priest, surveyor or whatever, spelt the name the way he thought it should be spelt.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 683 ✭✭✭KildareFan


    tabbey wrote: »
    It did not really matter how the individual spelt his own name, if literate. The recorder, whether priest, surveyor or whatever, spelt the name the way he thought it should be spelt.

    I agree - I've been pouring through the national census for family groups which I know should be there but don't come up with the normal spelling. I've found all kinds of variations of my surname. Sometimes the ancestor couldn't write, so the surname was filled in by the enumerator who used their own version of the name; sometimes the handwriting was less than clear; sometimes the surname evolved over the years.

    I've learned to use the asterisk when searching the census .... M*r*y will bring up every variant of Murphy, Murray, Morphey.....

    Surname spelling variation is still happening. I discovered that there are two different spellings of our surname in my family, arising from how our surname was recorded on birth/baptismal certificates, and which followed us through school, and onwards.


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