In my case the name on the ship manifest is not correct. The name at Ellis island is not correct. The name on the naturalization document is not correct. The name on they lived under was an American version of what they spoke. But luckily I found the records at the church where they were born and it is the name currently used in Poland. Lots of diggin to get to the truth sometimes. Some easier then others. Jim On Feb 16, 2009, at 10:08 PM, the cohens wrote: > I was also talking about birth and marriage records in England and > the US for my Vishnick family. The birth records have been horribly > elusive, and I think those names are official legal names, aren't > they? No, strictly speaking, it is not a name change of an > individual, it is giving a new family member a different surname > spelling than the rest of the family. > > We have Fishnick, Wisnick, Vishnick and Vishnek, as birth record > spellings I can say for sure, all one family, name was obviously > transliterated on the birth certificates. There may be more in this > one family, those were just the ones I could turn up quickly. > > I can hardly wait to find out how one that is eluding me turns out to > have been spelled, I am in touch with the daughter, so we know when > and where, but no one has been able to find the birth record which we > believe was definitely reported. > >> I think the question of whether name "changes" took place is really a >> matter of semantics. Of course there were errors made on the >> passenger manifests, census records, etc. The simple fact is that >> none of these resulted in a legal name change. > > ------------------------------- > 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 [email protected]