Flipside: Changing Names

Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join. I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside. AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024. Sometimes I get lazy. 😁 Let's see how well I keep up.

Week # 8 (February 26-March 3) is Changing Names.

The name changes in my family were not due to immigrants coming from non English speaking counties and their names being corrupted at Ellis Island. Nope! My family name changes came from within the families by family members. Frankly, for a genealogist trying to track down family members who at some point in their life decide to change their name can present a stumbling bock.

The most notorious name changing family member was my paternal grandmother aka Grams. Her ability to change the spellings of first and last names is not unknown to readers of Flipside. This was not due to Grams being illiterate. Quite to the contrary, she had an eighth grade education typical of most women of her age and was an avid reader.

Grams began with her own name. Sarah became Sara. I know Grams maternal aunt, Sarah Ann Poole Pinyerd also shortened her name to Sara and Grams was very close to that aunt.

Next was the surname/maiden name change from Van Gilder to Van Guilder. When I had a phone conversation with Cousin Kae (Catherine Wallace Billik my 1st cousin 1 time removed) decades ago, she told me that Grams oldest sister (Mary Louise "Bobs" VanGilder Wotherspoon) was the one in the family who decided to change the name. I'm glad I reread my note because I had originally attributed it to my Grams. 😉

😀

The first time I saw the spelling of Van Guilder was when I saw my father's birth announcement. I had just begun my foray into genealogy and assumed that was the spelling of his middle name and Grams maiden name.

However when I checked Dad's actual birth certificate, his middle name is spelled Van Gilder. I'm certain that the birth certificate was signed by Pop Pop and not Grams. Grams name is listed as Sara in 1921.

To further add to the confusion, my Dad's middle name was listed as Van Guilder on the college and medical degrees and his social security card.

I found his middle name as Van Gilder in 1949 when he enrolled in the National Guard and his Army Honorable Discharge in 1955. From about 1949 and on, Dad just used his middle initial "V". Maybe he was confused too. 😇

I never knew about the spelling change until I began corresponding with a cousin in my Pool(e)/Frum lines who was a noted historian and genealogist. His Pool(e)/Frum line, like mine traced back to Van Gilder. When I told him the spelling with a "U", he said he had never seen it written that way. Now I was on the right track.

Baptism document

Used Aiden as his name in high school

Grams named her second son, John Aiden Hughes. I was never certain if the Aiden was a tip of the hat to Pop Pop's West Hartlepool roots. However, in the UK it is spelled Aidan, after St. Aidan. There is a laundry list of male Aidan's in the UK Hughes family. Almost all UK Hughes family members were baptized, married and buried in St. Aidan's Church. Whether Grams consciously made the change or not we will never know. Certainly Pop Pop knew the UK spelling was Aidan.

I have seen that my Uncle John was referred to as Aiden Hughes throughout his school years growing up. Great Grandma Hughes also called him Aiden. At some point, John decided to be called John and I have seen on his college and medical school degrees he is John A. Hughes.

And now my take on the name. I tend to show it as VanGilder, no space between. So, here I am changing names. LOL

Poole to Pool and Back to Poole

Sampson Frum Pool Family
Mt Union Cemetery
Morgantown, West Virginia

My Morgantown, West Virginia Pool/Poole ancestry is also a changing name conundrum. Maybe some family members decided in the late 1800's to modernize or revert back to a previous spelling of their surname from a hundred years in the past.

Phillip Albert Poole, Sampson's son
Mt Union Cemetery
Morgantown, West Virginia

My 6th great grandfather, Walter Poole 1745-1833, my 5th great grandfather William Pool 1765-1808, 4th great grandfather Rev. Asby Pool 1787-1867, 3rd great grandfather Rev William Lanham Pool 1817-1911, 2nd great grandfather, Sampson Frum Pool 1849-1909 and my paternal great grandmother Jessica B. Poole VanGilder 1870-1949. All of Great Grandmother Jessie's siblings, that did not die at a young age, changed their surname from Pool to Poole.

With this family it requires two searches--Pool and Poole. 😁

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published. PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.