On the 1910 MA Federal Census my maternal grandparents, along with my mom and two of her siblings were indexed as SILVER instead of SILVA. An online friend's Raulino family became known as Rawlins. Another friend's Farinha family became known as Flowers. Hopefully these are the exceptions, but with "divine help," and determination we are able to locate our ancestors. Pat Silva Corbera Tracy CA david-nancy.degrella@juno.com wrote: Luis, Thank you for this information. Whether it was the way the name was said or what the English speaker heard, I believe this explains how there was a morph or evolution of the name. I have also found in the 1860 US census a "DeGrella" in Morgan County, Illinois. The is the area in which the Presbyterian exiles from Madeira had settled after their sojourn in Trinidad. This DeGrella must have also been a de Agrela. But let us not be too hard on the census takers. I say this despite that in the 1880 census my grandfather and great grandmother are indexed simply as "Grella". David DeGrella Tennessee, USA On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 16:27:41 -0800 (PST) Luis Beal writes: > It can be but also when we say two vowels in a row we tend to combine > them as one as in the case of "de Agrela" we say "Dagrela" or > "Dalmeida" instead of "de Almeida." It could have also been his > accent as Madeirans have a closed in french sounding accent. Who > knows. When it comes to the census someone once said you need to > imagine a drunken Irish asking a Polish woman for information, and > that is what you get, in this case imagine a drunken Irish asking a > Portuguese woman for information ;) > Luis Beal > > david-nancy.degrella@juno.com wrote: > Luis, > > In addition to pronunciation, English speaking persons may not > understand what they hear. My family name here in the U.S. is DeGrella. > As a "Portuguese" name DeGrella is found only in English speaking > countries. Having found other DeGrellas and DeGrillas that are not > related to me but whose ancestors came from Madeira, raised the question > how did this name come to be. My conclusions is that when a Portuguese > word beginning in a vow is spoken by a person from Portugal, the English > speaking person does not hear the leading vow. Thus when my great > grandfather told the census taken in New York city that his name is > Alexandre de Agrella, the census taker heard it as Alexander DeGrella. > Also when he joined the U.S. Army, his name was written down as DeGrilla. > I believe these types of written records caused my grandfather to use > DeGrella as his name. > (The DeGrillas on Bermuda believe their original Madeiran name to be Aguillar.) > Based upon your experience with both languages, would you agree with this > conclusion? > > Thanks, > David DeGrella > Tennessee, USA ============================== View and search Historical Newspapers. Read about your ancestors, find marriage announcements and more. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13969/rd.ashx