ancestor names – Loganalogy- Your Family Historian

I’ve been spending an unreasonable amount of time lately looking for people named Logan who sometimes weren’t named Logan.

In one Scottish research project, the surname appears in records as Loban, Lobban, and Logan.

Are they variations of the same surname? In some cases, perhaps. Does that mean every Loban I find can be turned into a Logan and attached to the family I’m researching?

Absolutely not.

It does mean I have to search for all of them.

Spelling Wasn’t Always Consistent

We are used to our names having an official spelling. It’s on our driver’s license, bank account, tax return, and everything else that follows us around.

Earlier records weren’t created in that world.

A minister, clerk, census taker, or registrar might write the name. Sometimes the person being recorded could sign it himself. Sometimes he couldn’t.

Accents mattered. Literacy mattered. The person holding the pen mattered.

And spelling could change from one record to the next.

I’ve seen the same surname spelled several ways within the records of one family.

That doesn’t mean spelling never mattered to our ancestors. It means we shouldn’t expect modern consistency from older records.

Search Beyond the Spelling You Know

If someone disappears from the records, I start experimenting with the name.

Take McLennan.

I might try McLennan, MacLennan, McLennon, McLellan, and other reasonable variations. If the database allows wildcards, I’ll try those too.

Then I start removing information from the search.

That sounds backward, but overly specific searches can hide the person you’re trying to find.

If I know Alexander was born around 1820 in Scotland, married to Margaret, and living in a particular county in 1860, I don’t necessarily need his surname to find the household.

I can search for Margaret.

I can search for one of the children.

I can search by first name, approximate age, birthplace, and location.

I’ve found people by searching for everyone in the family except the person I originally wanted.

First Names Wander Too

Elizabeth may become Betsy or Eliza.

Margaret may become Maggie or Peggie.

William may be Will or Bill.

Someone who normally used a middle name might appear under a first name in another record.

Initials created their own mess.

I keep track of the variations I actually find. I don’t change the record to make it match the spelling I prefer.

If the baptism says Loban, my transcription says Loban.

If another record says Logan, I record Logan.

The spelling itself is part of the record.

Similar Names Don’t Prove Similar People

There is another trap here.

Once you get comfortable with spelling variations, it becomes easy to stretch them too far.

Suppose I find a Kenneth Loban and later a Kenneth Logan in the same general area.

The ages are close.

Interesting.

But I still don’t know whether they were the same man.

Now I need more.

Where did each man live?

What was his occupation?

Who was his wife?

What were his children’s names?

Who witnessed his records?

Did he own or rent land?

Which church did he attend?

Who lived around him?

The surname variation tells me these records might belong to the same person. Everything else has to help me decide whether they actually do.

That difference has been particularly important in some of the Scottish research I’ve been doing lately.

Keep What the Record Says

I wish more online family trees preserved original name spellings. One thing that particularly bothers me is when people use the correction or edit feature to change a name simply because they believe it should be spelled differently, or because that is how the family spells it today. That isn’t what the correction feature is for.

If a census actually says Logane, don’t change it to Logan just because Logan is the spelling you recognize or use today. The record says Logane, and that is what the transcription should reflect.

On the other hand, if the original record clearly says Logane but the indexer or transcriber entered Logine, then a correction to Logane is appropriate. You are correcting the transcription to match the record, not correcting the ancestor’s spelling to match what you think it should have been.

If a record says Lobban, don’t silently change it to Logan and forget that Lobban ever appeared.

You can use a standardized version of the person’s name in your tree once you have established the identity. Just preserve the original form somewhere in your transcription, notes, or citation.

You may need it later.

A spelling that looks insignificant today might help you recognize another record tomorrow.

It might be common to a particular parish or family.

Or it may turn out to have nothing to do with anything.

That’s allowed too.