What's in a name (part II)?

Now that surnames are in common use, at least in most parts of the world, our job of finding all of our ancestors should be simplified, at least back into eleventh century Europe, right?

Well, no. It's not that simple. Even with the use of surnames common practice, names still change. For example, we've already looked at the life of Rachel Truax, John K Carson's wife. Her family line changed the spelling of their surname several times. Some of the documented versions include: Truax, Truex, Du Trieux, du Trieu, du Tryheu, and Trewex. They may be more that I'm not familiar with.

Why so many versions? While I'm unaware of any documented reasons for any of the name changes, there are records of why many people in the USA have changed their surname. Many names were changed when a person immigrated to the USA, or some other country. Perhaps their name contained characters that did not translate easily in the new country, or perhaps they decided to simplify the spelling. It could be that they wanted to reduce some stigma that was attached to a name, to ease their assimilation into the new society. Other reasons frequently cited include illiteracy on the part of the surname owner or some other person they interacted with, and government officials who misspelled their name on an official document, which then became the official spelling.

I've run into this with several of the family lines I've been researching. The names suddenly change, requiring detective work on the part of the genealogist. This is probably one reason that the SOUNDEX system was developed. More on that next time!