Poor Farms

[Buffalo Gal]

Learning family history is a great thing to do. I've been researching my own family history for over 20 years. I'd like to clarify a few things about all of those "name changes". Many people in the 19th century, and even into the early 20th century, were illiterate. Names were written as they sounded. Official records may have been written by someone who heard a name verbally, and then recorded it phonetically. This was especially true with non-english names. French surnames were even spelled differently by siblings in the same family! I have many French Canadian ancestors whose surnames changed slightly from generation to generation. And of course there are the French to English conversions which happened over time: Leblanc becomes White. There is also a misconception that many names were changed for those people who came through Ellis Island. Ellis Island had Italian speaking people working on site who wrote down the information given them by Italian immigrants, and the same for the Germans, French, and other nationalities. Official immigration records are usually accurate because of this. Later, some families changed their surname to sound more "American", not always out of fear, but out of a desire to fit in, to be more American. My grandfather was born in Italy with the surname "Costantini" but changed it when his children started school to "Constantine"! Kind of silly, because it became a Greek sounding name rather than an Italian name, but he wanted his children to really be Americans. Anyway, enjoy learning all that you can about your ancestors, and good luck!