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Research in Other Countries => Immigrants & Emigrants - General => Immigrant and Emigrant Resources & Offers => Topic started by: wearyprincess on Sunday 12 November 06 13:29 GMT (UK)
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Most immigrants had their names changed upon arrival in England, so I thought, how about starting a list of original surnames and the area and country of birth.
Mine is the family WINOGRON ( Grapes ) from Plock in Poland arriving circa 1890 in London.
Name changed to Weinthrop, Wintrop, Weintraub, Weintrop.
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I'm with you on this one.
Mine is the family of Klein, also from Plotzk (now Plock), and also arriving in about 1890. Eventually changed to Keene.
Also I have Blumenthal, but unable to establish so far where from. Could be Posen (Poznan) (some census say Tosen, Germany, another says Karpan, Russia). Name changed to Dale.
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I'm not sure if my ancestors changed their surname, though family keep telling me they are not sure if it is the right surname.
The surname I am researching is Loffman. My ancestors came from Russia or Poland.
timetraveller
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I've changed the title to make it more general.
here are a couple of items from
Topic: Sharing Useful Tips: GERMANY and E. Europe
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,11860.30.html
Just helped somebody out with this and thought it would be useful to others:
What were they called:
Many people emigrating to a new country have changed their names
- to avoid political repurcussions,
- to "disappear" from view, as far as the "Old Country" was concerned
- "new country, new start in life", trying to fit in
- the old name was hard to understand, so the name was anglicised, either voluntarily, or, in some cases, arbitrarily by immigration officials
Whatever the reasons, it makes life difficult for us, unless we know both the "before & after" names.
Here a some of the simpler name changes:
1) straight translation. the name looks similar and has the same meaning
e.g. Braun => Brown, Schmidt => Smith, Grun or Grün => Green, Müller => Miller, -feld => -field, etc
2) losing the umlaut vowels (pronounced: um-lout)
the official, alternative spellings for ä,ö, ü, ß are ae, oe, ue, ss. But on emigrating, many just dropped the umlaut => a, o, u,
e.g. Gröbener => Groebener or => Grobener
But: ä can be pronounced 'ay' as in Hay or 'e' as in hedge, so Bäcker might become Becker (soundex) or Baker (translation) or Backer (lose the umlaut)
Any other suggestions ??
p.s.
The exception confirms the rule:
Looking through the Susser Archive: http://www.eclipse.co.uk/exeshul/susser/dentists.htm I found this sentence, which I just have to share with you:
".. Abraham ben Isaiah, otherwise known as Moses Abraham Groomsfelt, or Jones,
a silversmith .."
I found the idea of changing his name to JONES amusing.
I could understand GROOMFIELD or something similar, but JONES !!
--- the mind boggles. There has to be a story there !
Edited: 02.04.2005
cell has just posted a "searching for " story on http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,47221.0.html
Her ancestor changed his name from Karlson to Carlson !!!!
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Anglacized names in my tree:
Albrecht = Albright/Allbright
Kirchner = Carkner
Certainly liked the Groomsman to Jones one? ;)
Lauraine
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Here's another useful topic:
Topic: Name Anglicization Site
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,49283.0.html
I also read an account recently, in a family history book, of two brothers Frank Charles DEGENHARDT and Walter DEGENHARDT, who, at the turn of the century, decided their names (their father was a german immigrant) were TOO german:
Walter DEGENHARDT became Walter HART, and
Frank Charles DEGENHARDT became Frank CHARLES !!
Bob
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Hi Bob
This is a good idea. How many of us who are not Jewish, I wonder, have Jewish ancestors from Eastern Europe whose given names are a mystery to us and frequently bear no relation to the names they were known by in England? They are also impossible to interpret as male or female.
On his naturalisation papers, my paternal grandfather (Israel Klein) states that his parents were Abraham Isaac Klein and Joyce Berliner Klein (Russians) from Plotzk in Poland. I have searched and searched without success.
But, just recently I came across an old photograph of a headstone in Hebrew which was amongst my late father's papers (died 1986) and wondered why he would keep such a photo. Translated it emerged that it was the grave of one Simcha, daughter of Benjamin, and the epitaph read "deeply mourned by her son, daughter-in-law and grand-sons". As my grandparents only had two boys I immediately assumed this was them - therefore the grave would belong to my great-grandmother, Joyce Berliner Klein.
I contacted a friend who speaks Hebrew and who is an archivist, who established the location of this grave and that the burial records show that the lady buried in it was a Sophia Fasser who died in early September 1925. Armed with this information I ordered the death certificate. This shows that she was the widow of Abraham Fasser and that the informant was her son, Cyril Keene - this is the name my grandfather took on naturalisation - so it is definitely my great-grandmother.
Wonderful, I thought, now I might be able to get somewhere. Not so. I have searched Jewishgen for Fassers with the right given names - nothing. I have, though, found an Abram Icek Fiszer and am wondering.
I had also previously noticed that my great grandmother's middle name, Berliner, had come up on my grandparent's marriage certificate - a Harry Berliner - as a witness. So I tried Benjamin Berliner - and found one (of only two) with a daughter called Sima Boruch Berliner - but I have no way of knowing whether this IS the right person. Could Sima have been "shortened" to Simcha?
I don't suppose I will ever know for sure - and, of course, there's absolutely no one left alive to ask.
Kismet
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Try PLONSK in the Plock area of Poland, N.W. of Warsaw. This is the area of my great grandparents.
Sima (given name) would have been Simcha ( Hebrew name )
wearyprincess
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For those of you with Jewish roots have you tried www.jewishgen.org? Many people submit the original Jewish name followed by what it was changed to. There is also a "soundex" section.....often names were just spelled differently to Anglicize them but sounded the same.
My in-laws both had their family names changed when the families immigrated, which is bad enough, but different siblings decided to change it the way they wanted and not as immigration had done. In one case we have four different spellings of the name for siblings in the same family.
dollylee
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Thanks, wearyprincess, for confirming what I thought about Sima/Simcha.
Thanks too, dollylee - I've been a member of Jewishgen for the past two years.
What threw me completely was that we had always been told that the name was Klein which had been changed to Keene and then to find that my gt.grandmother's married name was actually Fasser - well!!
Kismet
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Kismet,
Plotzk was the Yiddish form of Plock. You have a definite ancestral town.
I would doubt that Fiszer (Fisher) became Fasser; the names have two different roots.
Fiszer pronounced Fisher is derived from the German Fisch = Fish. It was a common nickname (kinui) for the Hebrew name Ephraim.
Fasser, on the other hand, comes from the German word Fass = barrel or keg.
Have you found any matches in the JRI-Poland database with the spelling Fassa?
Justin
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Thanks JustinL
I have done all the usual searches - yes, including JRI-Poland. My point was that my grandfather changed his name on naturalisation from Israel Klein to Cyril Keene, so it came as somewhat of a surprise to find that his mother had been buried with the name Sophia Fasser (on the death certificate) but Simcha on the gravestone - especially when he gave his mother's name (on his naturalisation papers) as Joyce Berliner Klein!! ???
I was not suggesting that Fiszer became Fasser - merely that the English person taking the information for the death certificate might have written it down wrongly.
Kismet
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Hello Kismet,
I quite understand, and did not wish to distract from your main point.
One further interesting point. The forename Israel was often shortened to Srol or something similar. It's not much of a jump to Cyril really, is it?
Justin
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Just joined the forum and have read your comments with great interest.
My father was called Nagel and was born in Wejherowo, Rumia. When he came to England during the war he changed his name to Grzybowski (to avoid his family being traced if caught?) and finally to Nagiel. I believe Nagel is in fact a German surname so I persume that his father or Grandfather was in fact born in Germany.
It does make things very complicated as although he was naturalised no trace of his application can be found by the relevant office.
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The other problem I have is that, although my great grandparents arrived in the UK in about 1890 I have been unable to find them on any census return. My grandfather first appears on the 1911 census, but his naturalisation papers show that he was brought here when he was 3 or 4 - as he was born (in Plock) in 1886 I would have expected to find them on the 1891 and the 1901 - but nothing. There is absolutely no trace of my great grandparents on any census return.
But then, equally, I can't find them in the JRI-Poland records because I have no idea what their real surname was. They arrived as Klein - the reason for the change to Klein (according to our family history) was that it was changed by the German authorities at their port of departure who could not pronounce their Russian/Polish name and so substituted Klein as they were not very tall, but no-one knows what it was originally.
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My ancestors came from Russian latvia ; the surname Fellman is fairly consistent tho sometimes gets a D in midddle . the first names have incredible variations at 1st I didn't see that it was the same family ;Father Leizer-mendel became alternately Mendel, lazurus Samuel L
interestingly the girls name Mera ,Basse, Sora Taube +Kahya Became; May,Bessie ,Sarah and Tilly when were enrolled at Manchester jews school 1891-1898
2 more Girls were born there Golde + Ester
; Golde's name changed to Gertrude when she was enrolled in Churchof England school in Birkenhead but she may have reverted to Golde in USA after 1910 Tilly became Matilda
Jewishgen was very useful for finding all the original names
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lovely picture Kismet
have you tried school registers for your great grandfather + his siblings
between 1890 and 1911 this is how I turned up alternative names for my ggfather' s siblings + father they also sometimes give an address + you may be able to find the same family with name variations from an address on 1901 census
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re the mother ; could Fasser be her maiden name ...I vaguely remember reading somewhere that jewish surnames can be passed down thru the women .
my gggmother's maiden name was Landsmann ..interestingly GGgfather's 2nd wife was also nee Landsman ..maybe he married his dead wife's sister or cousin
If you are lucy enough to have any gguncle/aunts who die in Scotland the mother's maiden name is given on death certificates ; I only found gggmother's maiden name from a 1960 death certificate she herself had died in 1898
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Some people took the place name of their origin or the name of a town they moved to .
I've come across a DNA match who has Kurland b 1950 at top of her tree with CURLAND daughter b1866 I wonder if they could be connected to my LANDSMAN side .."of the land" who came from.Kurland / Courland in Russian Latvia
I have seen families who take names LONDON LANCASTER one DNA match told me her grandfather had chosen the name MALVERN. Because he'd seen a picture of the Malvern hills
And I saw a YORKSHIRE. Family whose name had transitioned from JURGSHUR thru YACOROSKY as they travelled across Europe to USA between 1890 + 1920 ( I don't remember exact spellings but phonetically original name sounded like Yorkshire .
For those of you who think we.ll never know ...with DNA and large trees I think we may find confirmation of some of our theories
I've been trying to find original names for some GORDON s and MILLER
Trees may converge on the name GERSHOL
I wonder if MILLER name could be based on proffession how do you say a miller in Hebrew Latvian Lithuanian + German ?
My Jewish ancestor came from Courland/ KURLAND