On Jun 17, 3:54 pm, "Don Moody" <[email protected]> wrote: > <[email protected]> wrote in message > > news:[email protected]m... > > > Seeking information regarding Grandfather, Michael McDonald  who in > > late 1880's brought his German wife Eva Ovelock??  to Dromintee, Co > > Armagh. They had 8 children and grandmother's name is spelled > > differently on the birth certificate of each child. Names of > > children > > include, Thomas Patrick, Bridget, Peter, Mary, Eva Ellen, and > > Margaret. > > > Sponsers mentioned on the various baptismal certificates include: Thomas > > McDonald,  Anne McDonald, Laurence McDonald,  Mary McAleavey, Anne > > Shelvin, Phil Shevlin, Thomas,Shevlin, Alice Rooney, and Mary > > Heanly?? > > Any help will be received with gratitude. > > You need to get yourself sorted out before you attempt to continue > with genealogy. > > Go to the Genuki website and read the newbies guide. Reading a few > serious books on genealogy would help too. > > Then you might get sorted out about when a birth certificate is a > birth certificate and when a baptismal certificate is a baptismal > certificate, and be able to tell the difference between the two. > > Then you come to the complication of granny's 'variable' name. There > are two possibilities. Either she spoke her name with a German accent > and it was heard differently by different recorders. Or from time to > time she tried to anglicise her name and didn't always stick to the > same phonetics and/or translation or other form of modification. > > For an example of a mixture of methods,  a German called  Oberwegger > (a chemist who taught me how to translate chemical German) became a > Brit called Overton in later life. > > For another example, the Gaelic bheinn became the surname Bain in > Ireland and Scotland, Whitehead in England, Weisskopf in Germany, and > Montblanc in France. > > The lesson is that mistranscriptions are bad enough when they occur by > mistake and within one culture, but you've got to be on your toes and > indulge in lateral thinking to catch name variations between cultures. > > With a name like McDonald in northern Ireland it is futile to think > that searching Irish records is enough. Western Scotland is > genealogically one area with northern Ireland. People flitted back and > forth when small boats were the main means of travel and the roads > were from dreadful to impossible. Indeed there were some young lads in > Ireland who would row over to  a Saturday night ceilidh in > Campbelltown, Scotland, with genealogically interesting consequences! > Many of my own relatives found spouses on the other side of the water, > moving back and forth several times in a lifetime was nothing, the net > result is that I have as many nominally Irish as nominally Scottish > relatives, and the situation was fossilised in me being christened > Donald Patrick to shut up the Scottish Presbyterian cousins and the > Irish Catholic cousins. The mayhem when Rangers play Celtic in Glasgow > has been described as only the UDF and IRA playing away. That is how > close 'Ireland' and 'Scotland' actually are for genealogical purposes, > and you just won't cope with finding people unless you search both > lots of records. > > #Don Don, Thanks for your comments. I appreciate your suggestions. I made an error in the posting and listed the baptismal certificate sponsors as being on birth certificates. I have a copy of the 1901 and 1911 Irish census which shows that parents and children were living in Dromintee, Co Armagh, Northern Ireland in 1911. I further visited the Parish Office, now in Jonesboro and have copies of the records held there. It was from these records that I was able to discover the names of the various sponsors. The matter of the variable spellings for grandmother's maiden name is proving to be the major problem. I have downloaded emigration lists from Castle Garden and NY lists in the hope of finding a phonetic possible variation. All to no avail so far. PRONI, LDS, Genealogy, Ancestry, Armagh Records, Emerald Ancestors and US Records have no record of marriage for a Michael McDonald in the period 10 years before or after the birth of the first recorded child- so another blank. I listed the sponsors in the hope that some other researcher would recognize a surname and respond. I would have thought that a German wife would have been unusual in such a small Irish village. Your comments regarding the proximity of Scotland has opened up a whole new field of research. Thank you for your assistance, Trish