I just want to point out that United States immigration NEVER EVER changed your name. Your immigrant ancestor might have changed it himself for various reasons or had it changed due to phonetic spelling by a clerk at some point, but it was not changed during your entrance to America. Here is a nice article from a genealogy newsletter that covers the subject. http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2013/10/no-family-names-were-not-changed-at-ellis-island.html#more What people tend to forget is that a change of surname was not illegal unless you were attempting to defraud someone and, until modern times, was not uncommon. Personally, my mother's paternal branch had their surname, McLaughlin, changed to McGlauflin when some sons moved from a Scots-Irish settlement in New Hampshire to their newly acquired war bounty land in Washington County, Maine, where the majority of the settlers were from the Boston, Massachusetts area. The family then tried to populate the new area on their own - two McG brothers married two Smith sisters and had 38 living children between them. Jo-Ann

Jo-Ann,   Ellis Island did not open as an immigration center until 1892.  I stand by my original post.  I have evidence in my own family of names being changed by Canadian Immigration as recently as 1929 because the immigration officer didn't think that Hedwiga sounded so great for such a sweet young girl.  She became Margaret in the stroke of a pen :-)   Cliff. From: Jo Ann Croft <[email protected]> To: Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 2:26 PM Subject: Re: [Lanark] The lighter side of DNA and Genealogy I just want to point out that United States immigration NEVER EVER changed your name.  Your immigrant ancestor might have changed it himself for various reasons or had it changed due to phonetic spelling by a clerk at some point, but it was not changed during your entrance to America.  Here is a nice article from a genealogy newsletter that covers the subject. http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2013/10/no-family-names-were-not-changed-at-ellis-island.html#more What people tend to forget is that a change of surname was not illegal unless you were attempting to defraud someone and, until modern times, was not uncommon. Personally, my mother's paternal branch had their surname, McLaughlin, changed to McGlauflin when some sons moved from a Scots-Irish settlement in New Hampshire to their newly acquired war bounty land in Washington County, Maine, where the majority of the settlers were from the Boston, Massachusetts area.  The family then tried to populate the new area on their own - two McG brothers married two Smith sisters and had 38 living children between them. Jo-Ann   ------------------------------- WHEN REPLYING to a post please remember to snip most of the earlier message. Be sure the reply to address shows as [email protected] You may contact the List Admin at [email protected] or click on the following link to the list information page online:  http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/SCT/LANARK.html ------------------------------- 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

Do you think they ever realised what was causing it <vbg> Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) >The family then tried to populate the new area on > their own - two McG brothers married two Smith sisters and had 38 living > children between them. > > Jo-Ann