What’s in a name?

I have been looking for my Grandmother’s birth record, on my father’s side for over ten years thinking her name was Annie Wallace, hell Annie was even on her Tombstone. No matter how I tried I could not find it, so as I was trying yet again without luck, I decided to look again at the UK Census on which she was listed. Low and behold on the 1881 UK Census which was only two years after she was born in 1879 her name was listed as Ann not Annie. So I tried Ann instead of Annie and Bing-ho her 1879 Birth Registry came up. Now in hindsight in comes to me, why didn’t I think of that before. Everyone since she was a little girl probably called her Annie so even she thought that was her name and not just a nickname.

          The funny thing is a similar thing happens on my mother’s side, only I knew about it since my mother told me of it. See my mother was named Jeanette after her mother, who thought her name was Jeanette only to learn that her name on Birth Registry that her name was actually Janet not Jeanette, but it was Jeanette that was passed down.

          Another time that I had trouble with a nickname that wasn’t from the family, but from a Census taker, who put my Great-Grandfather name on the 1881 UK Census as Paddy instead of Patrick, which might have been a slur because he was an Irish Catholic in Protestant Scotland. I was able to find the Census from his son Robert, my Grandfather.

          Even our last name Boyle is actually a Norman name meaning woods, but what is appeared is that my family changed their last name probably from a Celtic name to get along in occupied Ireland.