Rootsireland & surname variants

Rmulvany

Didn't want to start a new thread as it's hopefully a question asked before.

I am trying to research the McGoona line in my family, from the Donaghmore, Navan in Meath.

I have managed to get so far with the tree but I am not at the early 1800s and have to rely on the records on Roots / NLI.
My problem is that there are variants of how the name is spelled: McGoona, Magonagh, Magonough, Magounough, Magouraugh, even McGowran (GV).

As you know, Roots requires a surname to perform a search, is there anywhere I could find a list of the surnames they search from so that I could go alphabetically and try and find all name variants?


On a side note, I was amazed to find the family in the 1821 Census!

pinkypinky

Yes, when you search for a surname and it brings up results, there's a hyperlink to the variants searched on the line detailing how many results (plus variants). It opens as a popup.

Rmulvany

My issue is that there are all these variants of the name but Roots does not recognize them as variants of one another.
So I would have to know the exact spelling for a particular person.

For example:
3 siblings: Mary, Thomas, and Bridget. They are all children of Matthew (McGoona) and Mary McNamee

However their surnames are
- Mary Magouraugh
- Thomas Magonough
- Bridget Magonagh

In the 1821 census, the family surname is McGaonach

And I know there are more siblings but as Roots is not showing any variations for these names I don't know how the surname is spelled.


I know it is due to the oral/aural interpritation of a non standard name. But I am looking for how to search for the family in old records.

pinkypinky

How do you know it doesn't?

Use John Grenham's guide and search each one manually that's not on the Rootsireland variant list then.

Rmulvany

pinkypinky wrote: »

How do you know it doesn't?

Use John Grenham's guide and search each one manually that's not on the Rootsireland variant list then.

I'll look into Grenham's guide, new to me.

It doesn't seem to because if you were to search any of the above surnames in the births/baptism you won't get the others in the results, even though they all reference the same parents etc

spurious

Is this what you want?
http://meath.rootsireland.ie/surnames.php

Rmulvany

spurious wrote: »

Is this what you want?
http://meath.rootsireland.ie/surnames.php

That is close to what I was looking for. I will have to go through each of the categories beginning with M bit it's should work.
Preferably I'd like to be able to search the whole surnames in alphabetical order like in the online census records.

Thanks

Waitsian

Rmulvany wrote: »

As you know, Roots requires a surname to perform a search...

https://www.johngrenham.com/blog/2018/12/03/wild-cards-are-a-gnlgsts-bst-frnd/

There's a wee trick in there for searching records in any given parish without any names.