Donnell = Daniel?

FURET · 29-12-2015 7:20pm #1

I've been baffled by some records I recently looked at. The records in question come from an early 19th century baptismal register and also the Tithe Applotment books for the same area (in 1825).

The individual(s) in question are Martin Donnell and Martin Daniel.

I have located a Martin Donnell married to a Margaret Leamy (or Tierney?). They married in January 1809, and in the accompanying baptismal register they had at least four children as follows:

Michael baptized Dec 26th 1821
John baptized 29 May 1823 except now the wife looks like Margaret Tierney
Dennis, baptized July 18th 1825
James baptized 25 January 1827
Michael (again?) baptized August 15th 1829, but this time Margaret looks like a Tierney instead of a Leamy and the location is given as "Marlhill", which matches the Tithe Applotment record for Martin Daniel

Since Marlhill is quite small and I would have expected to find a Martin Donnell there based on baptismal evidence as well as other information, I am surprised to not find him there in the Tithe Applotment book, but rather see a Martin Daniel instead. I've also seen other researchers come up against a Donnell / Daniel conflation (such as here). But I know for a fact that this family of "Donnells" spelled their name as d-o-n-n-e-l-l since at least the 1790s.

Any thoughts?

FURET · 29-12-2015 11:12pm

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!

L1011 · 29-12-2015 11:21pm

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.

tabbey · 29-12-2015 11:51pm

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.

KildareFan · 31-12-2015 12:06pm

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.

Donnell = Daniel?

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