On Sun, 5 Nov 2000 23:44:54 +0100, "Harald Storaker" <hasto@online.no> wrote: >I am Norwegian and do not know the how the Swedes did. In Norway most common >people at 1880 still had not adopted the new habit of a family surname. They >had two surnames, one patronymic (referring to the father's first name) and >one farm name, the address name. When immigrating to US they had to choose >one of their two surnames as a family surname. If your great-grandfather had >been Norwegian, his father's first name should be Peter, and he came from >Nystrøm farm. His Norwegian surnames would be Petersen Nystrøm. When he was >in his local village he would use Petersen as a surname, and when he went >further away he might use Nystrøm as a surname. > >When immigrating to US they never changed to a new surname. They chose >between the two surnames they already had in Norway. - But they might change >the spelling to help the Americans pronounce it. Good explanation. That's one of my pet peeves, when Americans talk about either this choosing from among two or more surnames or minor variations of spelling (which was not all that standardized a century ago, either in Norway or America) as a "change" of names. >What surname was used in the emmigration records vary a lot. In Bergen port >they usually used both surnames, but in other ports I think the patronymic >surname was most often used. > >Harald Storaker > ><NGroves@aol.com> skrev i melding news:c3.aa18433.2732ffc0@aol.com... >> I'm trying to locate records on a great-grandfather who emigrated from >Sweden >> in the 1880s. He changed his name (Peterson to Nystrom) in the US, and I'm >> wondering if it was customary to change your name before you left, or upon >> arrival. Since there was no real "change" involved as they looked at it, it would often be some time after the arrival in America before they settled down to one name to pass on as a family name--and members of the same family who came at the same time wouldn't necessarily make the same choice. I've even seen American born children with an active patronymic, such as Jacob Gunderson b. 1874 in South Dakota, the son of Gunder Jacobson, and at least one more like that in my database. > The answer affects how I search records such as ships' passenger >> lists. Although different individuals may have changed their names at >> different times, and for different reasons, was there a typical pattern >they >> followed that would guide me as I look for old records? >> >> Nancy Groves Look for all the variants of patronymics and farm names you can think of, and variations in spelling. Remember that the information is often not written down by the people you are looking for, but by someone else, which is an additional factor on top of the fact that the people themselves would have used different names and different spellings at various times in their life. Gene Nygaard Crosby, ND, USA