Name changes

[Erato]

I don't think illiteracy was an issue in the case of the Wares, even in the 1700s.  Basic education was seemingly more readily available in the United States than in Britain, at least in New England.  In theory, starting in the mid 1600s towns were required to set up schools and schooling was compulsory for boys; girls were mostly taught at home.  By the mid 1700s almost all villages had a rudimentary school.  In 1845, Litchfield, Maine [home of the Wares] had two competing private high schools; the Ware children attended one of them and three of the five children, one son and two daughters, went on to college.  Even so, there was some divergence of opinion about how to spell the name.

>>>>>>>>

As for Rosewarne/Rosewaine, there are dozens of military documents with the new name; he appears on two censuses as Rosewaine; he was married twice as Rosewaine; his daughter was called Rosewaine; and he was buried with that name on the stone.  It is possible he made the change for some non-military reason - there is a lapse between the last known use of Rosewarne [1923] and his re-enlistment as Rosewaine in 1927 and I don't know what he was calling himself during those years.

[Ruskie]

Have you seen a copy of the original 1927 enlistment document? Does the surname look like Rosewaine, Rosewarne or is it not clear? (that is, could the 'r' be mistaken for an 'i'?)

If the name variation occurred prior to his enlistment between 1923 and 1927, it could still be for a similar reason, accidental rather than intentional. 

 

[Erato]

I haven't seen the enlistment document.  The military records are all monthly 'muster rolls' that start the month after his enlistment and chronicle his military career [there are dozens of them, month after tedious month, all in the name of Rosewaine].  I just don't buy the theory that he felt obliged to change his name because some Marine Corps clerk made a typing error and he was too timid to speak up about it, so he went through the rest of his life with an erroneous name - including his commission as a 2nd lieutenant [reported in the Congressional Record], two marriages [his signature is on the second one], the death of his first wife [which he reported as Rosewaine], the birth of a daughter named Rosewaine, two censuses, and ultimately his burial under a rock labeled Rosewaine which must have been approved by his wife.

[Ruskie]

Fair enough. Changing only one letter seems odd though. Perhaps he simply preferred the sound of ..waine rather than ...warne.

I've just remembered a similar story - someone with the surname Bird hated it because people called her tweety bird, so she changed it to Baird. She appears variously as Bird and Baird on official documents. There may have been similar reasons, lost in the annals of time, for your ancestor's slight name change?

[Guy Etchells]

There seems to be some confusion on the forum about the use of names as some people seem to think names were used in the past as they are used today.
That is incorrect, in the past names, both the name itself and the spelling of it were far more fluid than they are today.
A brief explanation may be found on one of the familysearch wikis.
Historical Use of Aliases in the United Kingdom

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01l77/

Cheers
Guy

[Andrew Tarr]

I haven't seen the enlistment document.  The military records are all monthly 'muster rolls' that start the month after his enlistment and chronicle his military career [there are dozens of them, month after tedious month, all in the name of Rosewaine]. .....

Maybe after all that education he thought he would 'correct' the spelling to what he felt was the historically right version?

The family name of an ancestor of mine from Somerset alternated between Allard and Allwood, which raises the interesting question of how it actually sounded.  No wonder spellings varied a bit ....

[Marmalady]

A variation in spelling is one thing -- how about someone who uses two completely different names interchangeably throughout his life?

My husband's  Great great grandfather used the christian names Richard & Joseph and the surnames Plant & Hor(r)obin randomly throughout his life. He was very tricky to sort out!
Some of his children used the surname Plant in later life, others used Horrobin

[Erato]

"both the name itself and the spelling of it were far more fluid than they are today"

Sure, that's why I consider the Ware case to be entirely different from the Rosewarne case, as I said.

[Geoff-E]

One of my lot - usually SHERRARD - appears in 1881 as SHERMAN, then in 1891 and 1901 as SHEARMAN, dying in 1907 as SHERRARD.  His "wife" (apparently separated) stays as SHERRARD (ish)  throughout.