Evelyn wrote: > > "Dear Baden-Wuerttemberg List Friends, > > I'd like to offer the following to possibly help answer the common > genealogy > research question, "How/Why Would My Ancestor's Surname Be Changed?" (or > its > variant, "DID My Ancestor's Surname Get Changed?") > Dear Evelyn, On the whole I agreed with everything was pointed out. Especially since it was posted to the Baden-Wuerttenberg list. That's the area of Germany my Housman family came from. In researching our Housman family, my sister and I quickly became accustomed to accepting that our name had originally been spelled Haussmann, pronounced the same. Our great-grandfather Carl Christian Haussmann immigrated to this country in 1866 and we have a copy of the ship's passenger list with his name on it as just spelled. However, by the 1870 census he was listed in Pennsylvania as Charles C. Housman. The way I figured it, he had changed his name to be more acceptable in America. I had the feeling that once he reached our shores he felt that he was an American not a German. That did pose a problem however, when Norma and I searched the LDS microfiche to find a Charles Haussmann in the area of Stuttgart where one of our uncles said he came from. We were totally amazed that we didn't find a single Charles Haussmann. When we told another researcher our problem, she quickly came up with the answer. She said that the name Charles was a French name and that if we were looking for our Charles in Germany we should be searching on the name of Carl or Karl. And by George, she was right. We FOUND him! Yes, immigration officers and census takers had to rely on what was they heard said to them. And yes, in many cases the individuals had trouble with the English language. Not only that but a number of them couldn't even write their names. Thus many documents were signed by just an "X." I could go on and on regarding the subject but I'll stop here with one additional comment. When you're researching records, have an open mind as to what different spellings your ancestors may have been recorded as. If you're researching older records, let me just add this. One of our ancestors' surname was Essick. However, we never considered paying attention to anyone by the name of "Effick." That is until we realized that in old handwriting a double "S" was spelled as a double "F." Don't overlook anything that isn't obvious. vee