52 Ancestors Week 15: How Do You Spell That?

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 15

One of the things I tell people who are starting out in their family history journey is to not get hung up on a spelling. It's amazing how many ways a name can be spelled. (Just visit your local Starbucks, and you'll know what I mean!) Who is an ancestor who might have had trouble with people mangling their name?

Let's jam like it was the early 2000s!

    This week's prompt is a special one because I think Amy tailor made this topic especially for me. I can almost hear her say "Keep telling yourself that, Chris!", That's my own head-canon because we all know how difficult spelling Italian last names can be. Sometimes they can be easy like "Coppola" or "Tedesco".  Other times they can be difficult like my own last name, "Ferraiolo". I've already talked about how hard it is for some people to pronounce my last name. Here's a quick video about how to pronounce "Ferraiolo". It can also be pronounced "Fehr e oh low". I mentioned how much fun I had with substitute teachers regarding the pronunciation. How could I not?! It's hard to resist! But, did you know that even in Italy my last name has several variations? 

Believe it or not, this
is a quality scan!

        In Italy, there are several variations of  the last name "Ferraiolo".  Some of the most common variants are spelled like "Ferraiuolo" and others don't have the "a" in at all. I'm not sure why that's the case. I've been assured that they all basically mean the same thing: "iron worker". "Ferraiolo" is also part of a priestly vestment worn by members of the Catholic church, Hmm....I think I'll go with the cooler iron worker meaning. =) You would too! Just give me a cave and a bunch of scraps!

    As I've been researching births in San Pietro a Maida, I've noticed that the spelling of my own last name was much different in the 1810s that it was by the 1860s. Check out this document for example. That's the birth record for Marcantonio Ferraiolo who was born on October 9th, 1812. Marcantonio was my fourth great-grandfather and on the document you can see his father's last name was spelled "Ferriolo".

    That's pretty curious, isn't it? Wait. It gets better. Marcantonio grew up and married a woman named Domenica Russo some time before 1836. At the time of this blog's posting, I've found seven of their children born between 1836 and 1851. The last names on the documents gradually evolved into "Ferraiolo". The big question on everyone's mind should be "Why is that?"

    I honestly wish I had an answer. Illiteracy on the part of the clerk writing down the names could have been an issue. Maybe they just didn't hear the name correctly and spelled it phonetically? When the person wrote the name, they could have even fused some letters together. It happens more often than you might think! My mother once explained how one time the last name got a "do" at the end because the "olo" part of the last name was blurred into each other. 

    It's honestly hard to say what exactly happened and I'm not here to judge anyone. I clearly wasn't there in the early 1800s. I'm not a time lord even though I wish I was! What I do know is that it seemingly evolved into "Ferraiolo" by the time my second great-grandfather was born in 1868....only for it to get consistently misspelled once my family came to America. That's where things got interesting!!

Vincenzo e Maria

    While Marco never went to America, his son Vincenzo definitely did. Several times in fact! I have found his last name spelled in many different ways before I even found him in the 1930 US census. Check this out:

1. In 1913, he was listed as "Vincenzo Ferrajolo" on a ship manifest when he was traveling to visit his aunt, Concetta.

2. His World War I draft card had his last name spelled "Ferreiolo".

    I think we can all agree that those are some fascinating spelling variations. Since they are already in the documents, they have been transcribed to reflect what was seen on paper even though the information could be incorrect. The misspellings would transfer over as hints and that can cause a bit of a headache while you look for your ancestor with an unique last name! Can it be corrected? Oh, yes it can!

I promise to use this power for awesome.

    Websites like Familysearch and Ancestry allow users to make corrections to documents. After all we're all only human. Most of us, anyway. We humans tend to make mistakes and stuff gets transcribed incorrectly. It's all good because you can correct the spellings of certain last names on those sites. When you do so, it becomes SO much easier to search. Your descendants and anyone researching your family will thank you later. Trust me.

    Remember last week when I talked about how I found Vincenzo with his last name as "Ferialo" in the 1950 US census? Well, I changed the name on NARA to "Ferraiolo" and now when I search for "Ferraiolo" on the site he pops up along with my grandfather AND my father.  I'll have to make the same corrections on Ancestry and Familysearch when the time comes. It's no big deal.  I did make sure to note the enumeration district and everything. As of this blog's posting, Massachusetts hasn't been made available for indexing. Guess what I'm going to do once it does!

    Speaking of Ancestry, you'd think I'd have had to have fixed "Ferraiolo" as the last name was misspelled in the 1930 and 1940 US census. I didn't! My cousin, Mary Tedesco, actually fixed the spellings back in 2011. For that I have to thank her. It means so much to me! Grazie, cugina! =D

Too bad the misspelling's still
there. Sigh...

    I will admit that my last name still has people scratching their heads over the spelling and pronunciation. I take it in stride and calmly spell it out for them if I need to. All of the vowels can trip people up and that's not including the fact that "a" is somehow silent when you say my name out loud!

    I have noticed a few things, though. When people with my last name come to America, they tend to change it into something a little different. No, they didn't change it at Ellis Island. Get away from here with that line of thinking. 

    My second great-grandfather, Marco, had a brother named Giovanni and for whatever reason he changed his last name from "Ferraiolo" to "Ferriola". The unique spelling was passed down to his children, grandchildren and more down the line. It was....strange to say the least.

    I was only able to figure out that he was a "Ferraiolo" after noticing how closely related DNA matches were to my great-aunt. I think they were somewhere in the 200s range. Then I found his death certificate in Philadelphia. His parents were listed as Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Caterina Campisano, my 3rd great-grandparents. And his birthplace was listed as San Pietro a Maida. Did my spider-sense go off? Oh, yeah. It was buzzing a blue streak! Were the names misspelled? Yes. And I corrected the  Call that luck. If my great-aunt didn't take a DNA test, I probably wouldn't have figured it all out. Or at the very least had a bit of trouble. 

    So, what do you do if you have these variants? Well, you should search by every variant you can think of. Use wildcards! The possibilities are endless. I was lucky with the 1930 and 1940 census. Someone else might not be so lucky and it's important to keep that in mind. When you do search, try searching by variations or even their last known address. The results might surprise you!

    At the end of the day, it's important to remember that you should search for last name variants. There's more than one way to spell a last name! In my case, I've been dealing with different variations of "Ferraiolo" my whole life. It's just how it is. I'm sure other people have had the same issues with their own last names. Does it make it a challenge to research? Probably. But, there's some satisfaction in connecting people regardless of the spelling. 

See ya next time!