General Chat

Good helpful tip Susan... thank you.
One I really should have know..... but I'm an eedjit. ;-0(

Deanna X

Name changes are often published in the London Gazette so it's worth looking at Gazettes online.

Good thought, Susan. Oddly enough, my 3xgreat grandad Edward Willday had a brother David who went out to Australia somewhere between 1851 and about 1865 and for some reason David changed his name to George Hunter Wildie - it was my dad who suggested that "Wildie" could be an Australian-sounding interpretation of his birth name.

Sometimes I look at branches of my family and the different spellings they used or appeared in parish records under (one group flipped between Masco, Mascow, Myerscough, Mascoe, Maskow and Maskew) and I find it really helps to give an idea of how they might have pronounced it. Similarly I have another branch who appear as Houlcroft, Holcroft, Howcroft, Aucroft and Oldcroft - it helps to play around in your head with alternative spellings.

When you are trying to make sense of info from more resent times is if the family name changed for reasons other than marriage, i e some of mine are Italian and were advised to change to an English name during the ww2 so changed to one of their English connections if you get my meaning.