Genealogy Chat

When researching Ancestors from an area,other than where you live, think about the Accents of that area!
People didn't move around somuch in years gone by and I think accents were much stronger.
I was searching for my Paternal GFather some years ago in St. Catherine's House. ( Heaving all those wonderful Tomes around) I was searching for him being born near Sunderland.
I couldn't find him, thinking perhaps he hadn't been born, no I wouldn't be here if that was the case! Perhaps he hadn't been registered.?
Then it dawned on me.
My Father had migrated over the Tyne to Newcastle, where I was born. If I thought of our family name in a SOONDERLAND accent then the Murdy became Mordy.
Yes! there he was ( the O's are a long way from the U's in those Tomes.)
Mystery solved.
Sunderland, even Gateshead accents are so different to Newcastle ones!
Happy Hunting

Yes - I'm researching Mocock - and I think they originated from "oop North" and some of them show as Morecock.

Easily done.

Jill

I was looking at Murpheys the other day & found one in a census where it was spelled Morfey! I am assuming her Irish accent was a bit thick!

The point about accents is good, although the point about not moving around much might be true for some families, but branches of mine moved considerable distances for work, although yet again this would cause problems with the enumerator understanding accents, even in this day in age with a mild accent from 'up north' I find people 'down south' don't always seem to understand what I am saying, sometimes to the point were I have to repeat myself several times.

Another consideration is families themselves tweaking the spelling, I know of a branch in my tree were an error on a birth certificate lead to the new name being used by all that persons descendants, and more recently I found out an Aunt was teaching cousins a 'different' spelling of their surname,, basically because it 'seemed posher that way'.

Yes, the accent thing is a very good point. I spend several years looking for the marriage of my g-g grandparents in the 1850s. I knew the names, the groom's name being Richard Habberley. Eventually I found the marriage, but the groom was named as Richard Applet. There is no doubt that this is the right marriage as all the other information fits perfectly. When I looked into it I realised that the groom was an illiterate shropshire farm labourer, wife also illiterate, married in Birmingham, clergyman (newly arrived in the parish from "down south") had italian parents so may well have grown up speaking italian at home. Also the bride was pregnant at the time. You can just imagine this rather shamefaced shropshire yokel hanging his head and muttering his name when asked. The clergyman was probably struggling with the Birmingham accent let alone a broad shropshire one. If you mutter "Habberley" to yourself several times, you can see how he heard "Applet".

It just shows how easily things can get distorted, particularly when the people concerned cannot read and therefore have no way of knowing that the name has been written down wrongly.

Tina

I had a similar instance to BigOmms. My grandfather got married 10 miles away from his town, in a different county. In his case, the "o" became a "u" and "ans" at the end became "ance".

Different pronounciations continue - I pronounce my maiden surname differently to the way my father did, just because of the accents of the two areas of London that we were brought up in, but the two are so similar that most people would spell them the same way.