Our surname was changed by the Emmigration officer at Ellis Island. Three brothers came over together and were not about to mess up getting into America by arguing over a letter in their names. The officer changed the German double ss which looks like an hs to him and said ok, "New Country, New Name, New life". and through the gates they went with no arguing. I think it was a rush and the emmigration officers were in a hurry and really had no feeling of individual respect and interest in each immegrant, just get the job done. There was no political correctness those days. Bobbie >From ohjeffer-l-request@rootsweb.com Tue Jan 5 08:29:12 1999 >Received: (from slist@localhost) > by bl-30.rootsweb.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA24019; > Tue, 5 Jan 1999 08:21:37 -0800 (PST) >Resent-Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 08:21:37 -0800 (PST) >Message-Id: <199901051619.LAA29727@willie.wvinter.net> >From: "Sandra Ferguson" <ferg@wvinter.net> >Old-To: <OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com> >Subject: Re: Name Changes >Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 11:22:35 -0500 >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal >X-Priority: 3 >X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161 >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Resent-Message-ID: <"DeR4lC.A.52F.Pwjk2"@bl-30.rootsweb.com> >To: OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com >Resent-From: OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com >Reply-To: OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com >X-Mailing-List: <OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com> archive/latest/1233 >X-Loop: OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com >Precedence: list >Resent-Sender: OHJEFFER-L-request@rootsweb.com > >I'm sure that a large part of the spelling changes came from the illiteracy >of many emigrants. If you can't read or write, as was the case with many, >the census taker, immigration worker, etc had to use his own spelling to >aproximate what the person told them. > >---------- >> From: Janice G. Donley <jdonley@bellatlantic.net> >> To: OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com >> Subject: Re: Name Changes >> Date: Tuesday, January 05, 1999 10:45 AM >> >> Sometimes the immigration officials couldn't understand or spell the >> 'foreign' names and so they Americanized them. I know of a family who >> came here from Russia. The father's name was Ralfol Wazanski and the >> official threw up his hands and said, "You will be 'Raphael.' And so the >> family is still many years later the 'Raphael' family. >> Sometimes people Americanized their own names. Around World War I people >> of German descent often changed the spelling of their names in an effort >> to disassociate with the enemy. >> Also people changed their names because of the different meanings of >> words in English and their homeland. Such as, in Germany a baker might be > >> called 'Backhaus' but over here people tended to associate the word with >> the 'house out back' that was common to most households years ago.Name >> changes were easily done in the days before Social Security. >> >> I'm afraid there is no 'sole' reason but a different reason in every >case. >> >> Janice > > >==== OHJEFFER Mailing List ==== >To unsubscribe from the list. Send an e mail to >ohjeffer-l-REQUEST@rootsweb.com >with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the message body. > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com