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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: jjheslen on Wednesday 30 December 20 15:26 GMT (UK)
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Hi,
Does anyone have any information on the spit between the names Heslen and Heslin in Ireland?
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Welcome to RootsChat :)
Try the John Grenham website:
https://www.johngrenham.com/findasurname.php?surname=Heslin
https://www.johngrenham.com/findasurname.php?surname=Heslen
KG
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Hi, do you have any further information by way of context that might help readers of your topic to respond to you?
:)
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Welcome to Rootschat.
It is likely to just be a spelling variation.
As gaffy says the context would help.
Best wishes
Heywood
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The idea of a single or correct spelling for a surname or a place name in Ireland is very much a recent phenomenon designed to meet the needs of modern officialdom. Before that there was no consistency. Names were spelled phonetically and each variation was down to the whim of the particular person recording the information. You will often see the spelling change as the records go back. This rarely indicates a deliberate decision to alter the name, nor even a mistake. Not everyone was literate, but even when they were, exact and consistent spelling simply wasn’t something they bothered about.
Here are 2 examples of spelling varying within the same family in the same census:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Sharvogues/Drumsough/920148/
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1851/Antrim/Upper_Glenarm/Carncastle/Four_Score_Acre/5/
Expect the spelling to vary. It was the norm.
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All,
Thank you all for your responses. I think it is just a matter of spelling variations. I was told our family name was derived from Ó hEislin, possibly formerly Ó Heisleanáin, and there was some sort split that occurred in the family whereby the different spellings were then used, although I now doubt this is the case.
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Registrar-General of Ireland published a book in 1901 about anomalies in names. An example was a man who, when he went to register his brother's death, he spelled his own surname differently to his brother's. When registrar queried the 2 spellings, the man replied that his brother had always spelled his name that way.
"O" might be dropped or added according to whim or circumstances.
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My birth surname and married surname are both spelled differently. One variation is just the omission of the ‘O’ which we didn’t have but cousins do. Then my Irish cousins now pronounce and spell the surname completely differently. (Not the Irish version - the anglicised version).
My married surname can have an ‘a’ or ‘e’. It also has a ‘d’ in the name. However in the past it sometimes did but sometimes not. It makes research great fun.
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In his Special Report on Surnames in Ireland, published in 1909, Mathieson includes numerous examples of variation in the spelling of surnames which depended on the whim of the holder. “Some years ago the marriages of a brother and sister in the same family were solemnized in a Registrar’s office. The son gave his surname as “Faulkner” and his father’s name as “Faulkner.” The daughter gave her surname as Falconer, and her father’s surname as Falconer. Both marriages were subsequently re-solemnised in a place of worship, and the same orthographical differences were found to exist in the records kept by the officiating Minister.”
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One letter difference/change in spelling wouldn’t necessarily be due to a ‘split’ in the family. More likely to be an ‘organic’ change following lack of accuracy or consistency of spelling. The surname sounds (more or less) the same when spoken anyway.
Another thing to consider is that a written e and i can look very similar, so the e/i difference in spelling may be down to how the name was transcribed from original documents.
Everything else being equal, I think most people would see these as being the same surname. The era might have some significance too, as more recent in theory = more accurate.
Some time ago someone asked for a document to be transcribed - (I think it was a will) Within a few lines, the surname was spelled three different ways.
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One letter difference/change in spelling wouldn’t necessarily be due to a ‘split’ in the family. More likely to be an ‘organic’ change following lack of accuracy or consistency of spelling. The surname sounds (more or less) the same when spoken anyway.
Another thing to consider is that a written e and i can look very similar, so the e/i difference in spelling may be down to how the name was transcribed from original documents.
One of my family names is Loftus, common to Mayo. It's sometimes Loftis and occasionally Loftes. They all sound similar. My GGF didn't read or write, Irish was his first language.
A relative named Mulvee had 2 marriages and a large number of children in England, all in the same town; records under Mulvee, Mulvie, Mulvey. Transcription errors by GRO resulted in extra variations, some of which were amended after I submitted corrections with evidence from original registers.
I found 20 spelling variations of one Irish surname in Lancashire, a different spelling for every town where people with the surname settled in mid 19th century.