Hi All, I am overwhelmed by the number of replies. The many suggestions as to the way forward has taken my breath away and will need much time to mull over which is the best or more suitable to me and therefore the whole 'puzzle' will be put on the back-burner for now. It is so interesting that the signitures on the applications for USA naturalisation of three brothers, James Patrick & Lawerence are all quite clearly MINGY. This corresponds with the transcription of there baptisms in Ireland, their father being Edward MINGY but there are very few other recorded MINGY, which is 'where I came in' as they say. A question which is raised from all of this is ' How do we learn to write our name', in general our parents showed us. But what happens when as was years ago the parents were illiterate, the answer they relied on the parish Priest/Vicar or whatever to write the surname as they thought fit. This is then made more complicated when the 'accent' of the 'recorder' is not the same as the 'locals' and further more in the case of Ireland where there are other languages being use, ie Gaelic and/or Latin, makes even further difficulties in ascertaining the correct spelling of a surname, but you all new that anyway. I will leave the data in my database at the point when the MINGY/MINGEY emmigrated to USA and any thereafter and not try and trace it back to Ireland, making a note for my 'heir apparent' to sort out this puzzle. Once again MANY THANKS to all replies. Regards Tony Anthony John MINGAY, now in NZ once of Kent & Suffolk, England but still researching Worldwide the surname MINGAY & its variants. http://www.mingayhistory.co.uk.

I am interested in how we speak as I am involved in adult education and would make some points to help those looking for name variants, at least in Scotland Never discount replacing one vowel sound with the other four or y I am surprised how often my learners mishear or miswrite vowel sounds. thus there are Thorntins out there In the Scottish records there are wide variations. I drew up a table which cross checked the two syllables that make up my name and all their variants then checked for each combination of the two. In some cases you might only get one or two entries in the Old Parish Records, and for some none. But you had covered all the bases, and who is to say the one off is not the one you are looking for. I sometimes try and think of unconnected words that might be mistaken for the surname - in this case mangy would be an option. One amusing one I spotted was Wardrop and Wardrobe Never forget the Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe - there are plenty of Thornetons and Thorntonnes of that ilk out there. In Scotland these die out as we move into the 19thC. but some survive to a later date. By now we are all modern up to date Thorntons, or so I think. Interestingly there are exotics out there. I am looking at the Fortons/Forntons in the Old Parish Records they appear as a brief flash in the pan then either left or morphed into? I rather think conformed to the modern spelling of Thornton. Multiple spellings of surnames for the same family appear through time. In the case of Christian names in my family there is a distinctive Patrick/Peter swap for the same person repeated in some generations. I have never been able to utilise the advanced search in Scotland's People to reflect all these possibilities but use the free starter search to look at options. Reassuringly there must be some underlying principles that hold true over the centuries - in my experience few of the more bizarre options actually appear. Norman Thornton I am building on my existing variants before rebuilding my spread sheet of Thorntons in Scotland pre 1855. Norman Thornton Working in Aberdeen in the eighties I found the Aberdonian accent incomprehensible for the first few weeks and they thought I was from London when I am actually from Edinburgh. Local accents can distort names in different ways. -----Original Message----- From: mingay via Sent: Monday, November 24, 2014 11:10 PM To: GOONS Forum Subject: [G] re :- Puzzled? Hi All, I am overwhelmed by the number of replies. The many suggestions as to the way forward has taken my breath away and will need much time to mull over which is the best or more suitable to me and therefore the whole 'puzzle' will be put on the back-burner for now. It is so interesting that the signitures on the applications for USA naturalisation of three brothers, James Patrick & Lawerence are all quite clearly MINGY. This corresponds with the transcription of there baptisms in Ireland, their father being Edward MINGY but there are very few other recorded MINGY, which is 'where I came in' as they say. A question which is raised from all of this is ' How do we learn to write our name', in general our parents showed us. But what happens when as was years ago the parents were illiterate, the answer they relied on the parish Priest/Vicar or whatever to write the surname as they thought fit. This is then made more complicated when the 'accent' of the 'recorder' is not the same as the 'locals' and further more in the case of Ireland where there are other languages being use, ie Gaelic and/or Latin, makes even further difficulties in ascertaining the correct spelling of a surname, but you all new that anyway. I will leave the data in my database at the point when the MINGY/MINGEY emmigrated to USA and any thereafter and not try and trace it back to Ireland, making a note for my 'heir apparent' to sort out this puzzle. Once again MANY THANKS to all replies. Regards Tony Anthony John MINGAY, now in NZ once of Kent & Suffolk, England but still researching Worldwide the surname MINGAY & its variants. http://www.mingayhistory.co.uk. _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message