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 >