I have also heard that sometimes a wife, who was literate, would use a cross if signing with an illiterate husband so as not to shame him. But have no idea if there's anything in this or not. Mary On 3 Sep 2013, at 17:13, [email protected] wrote: > More specifically, it was more often that there > was no single established English version of their > name which they used, or in a few cases, even a > form of protest for having to use an English > version. I had a Gaelic-speaking 3xgt-grandfather > from Perthshire who was christened Domhnall. He > was quite literate, but after emigrating to Canada > as a young man in 1825, he from then on used > either Donald or Daniel interchangeably when > signing an English-language document. Family > legend has it that he said neither was his name > really, so he didn't see what difference it made. > His descendants doing family history research > could have argued the point with him, when his > childrens' birth registrations make it appear as > if his wife was bigamously producing children with > two fathers with the same surname :-) ! > > This has been discussed briefly on both my British > historians' list, and on my names scholars' list > referring to immigrants from many other cultures > attempting Anglicized versions of their names in > North America, particularly if their own language > didn't use the Roman alphabet. I'm sorry I can't > give a link reference in either case, but I just > remember the discussions in past years. > > Margaret Gibbs > > > > > On 02/09/2013 11:38 AM, Janet wrote: >> On another Rootsweb List to which I am subscribed we have been having a discussion about >> education which moved to people needing to put a cross because they could not write their >> name for the purposes of official record. It seems that it was not necessarily because a >> person could not read or write but that the requirement was to write a name in English, >> rather than Gaelic and some could not write their name in English. >> Could the historians amongst us tell us more about it? We know that not every person had >> an education sufficient to enable them to read or write but the incidence where language >> was the reason is of interest. I think we need to know rather than draw the wrong >> conclusions. >> >> >> Janet >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message