What's In a Name?

In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet proclaims ""What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." While that might be true, names can complicate research when you're trying to track down family members in various official sources. I've come to find out that the names we know people by are not necessarily the names we're going to find them under.

Take my great-grandparents on my mother's side, for instance. John Jay and Jennie Maude are, evidently, the names they were given at birth. However, in records they are inevitably found as Jay and Maude. (In an aside, I spent years trying to figure out why someone named Jennie would go by Maude if given a choice. I'm now willing to bet it's because her mother was named Jennie and it was to avoid confusion.) My own grandfather, John Raymond, never went by anything other than Raymond. This name confusion can make people difficult to track down.

The issue becomes even more confusing if you find the same person listed in different years under different names. Trying to track down the above mentioned John Jay's brother, I have no idea if his name was actually Lewis Frederick or Frederick Lewis. I've found him as Lewis F, Fred L, and Frederick L. Once the person gets married or moves out of the family home, I've yet to determine how you're supposed to be certain you've found the right one.

So while a rose might smell as sweet no matter what you call it, if you're looking for Romeo in your family tree, it helps to know that he's a Montague. And that his parents sometimes called him Fred.