This one is actually very recent, and about my grandfather. A first cousin had been doing the genealogy of my paternal family for some time. She had my grandfather listed as Rufus Marion. As a matter of fact, the Marion was a "family" name, so I went with it, and he always signed his name Rufus M. Everyone else said it was a fact. Everyone except one person, my Dad. He said he thought sure his Dads name was Rufus Marvin. This year when Ancestry had their military WWII database free, I poured over it trying to find Grandpa's service this time. He never talked about his service at any length, which made it hard to find anything. I finally found him registered under Rufus N. When I searched more carefully for his ship (he was Navy), I found him with the name Rufus Marvin Brock. All of his records except his registration was under the middle name of Marvin. My Dad was right! I've been at this for over 20 years and I still found a mistake about someone I knew very well. I wish my Dad was here so I could share it. Always check for yourself. -- Sheri FamilyTwigs <http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~familytwigs/> TwigTalk <http://familytwigs.blogspot.com/> Indiana Trails To The Past <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Eintttp/> SA Jackson County <http://www.rootsweb.com/%7Einjacktp/>Trails To The Past

Philip Schmitt was born in 1760, Dutchess County, New York, the son of Johan Jacob Schmitt who was born in Affalterbach in what is now Germany. The latter immigrated to the Americas in about 1752. Philip Schmitt/Schmidt emigrated to Canada from the colonies before his children were born. One son was called Mathias Smith (1786-1868), and apparently his brother and four sisters also used the name Smmith, and all further descendants were referred to as Smith, rather than Schmitt or Schmidt. But family lore (this is my maternal grandfather's maternal family) is that they changed their name during World War I in order to avoid having a German sounding name. Maybe that was the reason why it was changed originally, I simply don't know, but it certainly was before the first world war by more than a few years. Connie L ----- Original Message ----- From: "Familytwigs" <familytwigs@gmail.com> To: gen-newbie@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, January 5, 2012 7:32:56 AM Subject: Re: [GN] Family Lore and Genealogy This one is actually very recent, and about my grandfather. A first cousin had been doing the genealogy of my paternal family for some time. She had my grandfather listed as Rufus Marion. As a matter of fact, the Marion was a "family" name, so I went with it, and he always signed his name Rufus M. Everyone else said it was a fact. Everyone except one person, my Dad. He said he thought sure his Dads name was Rufus Marvin. This year when Ancestry had their military WWII database free, I poured over it trying to find Grandpa's service this time. He never talked about his service at any length, which made it hard to find anything. I finally found him registered under Rufus N. When I searched more carefully for his ship (he was Navy), I found him with the name Rufus Marvin Brock. All of his records except his registration was under the middle name of Marvin. My Dad was right! I've been at this for over 20 years and I still found a mistake about someone I knew very well. I wish my Dad was here so I could share it. Always check for yourself. -- Sheri FamilyTwigs <http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~familytwigs/> TwigTalk <http://familytwigs.blogspot.com/> Indiana Trails To The Past <http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Eintttp/> SA Jackson County <http://www.rootsweb.com/%7Einjacktp/>Trails To The Past ******************** Gen-Newbie's website: http://www.rootsweb.com/~newbie/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GEN-NEWBIE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message