Stirpes, Volume 7, Number 4, December 1967 Page: 133
pp. 121-160 ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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SOME ADVICE FROM SAINT PAUL
By Joseph C. Ferrier, Herald,
National Genealogical Society--
For the right way to do genealogy let me suggest Doane's
SEARCHING FOR YOUR ANCESTORS. It has good ideas and suggests
good books to help you.
Now let me say a few words of praise of doing genealogy the
wrong way. Fine new books are coming out to replace obsolete
authorities with errors in them. I like the obsolete error-filled
ones. I know that I must doublecheck them.
Virkus' COMPENDIUM OF AMERICAN GENEALOGY is unreliable, undocumented,
with only the males indexed. I love Virkus. All the surnames
in the set are listed in the index to Volume VII and the index
to Volume V tells which of the earlier volumes each surname
appears in. It is the greatest clue book in America, but you must
check all of its data against other sources. Well, shouldn't you
always?
I like surname books. Bardsley's ENGLISH AND WELCH SURNAMES,
Woulfe's IRISH SURNAMES, Black's SURNAMES OF SCOTLAND, Fucilla's
OUR ITALIAN SURNAMES, Dauzat's DICTIONNAIRE DES NOMS ET PRENOMS
DE FRANCE, Gottschald's DEUTSCHE NAMENKUNDE. There are newer ones,
but I like these. One little goodie just came out--THE ROMANCE
OF SPANISH SURNAMES--published this year (1967) by Charles R.
Maduell, Jr., 6368 Orleans Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70124.
It is in English, lists the meanings of 1500 Spanish names, and
tells you what part of Spain many of them came from. I have a
copy and I like it.
Surname books give you a clue to national origin and alternate
spellings.
Foreign dictionaries help. For instance, words in ItalianEnglish
dictionaries do not start with the letters "SH" or "W."
Names beginning with those letters are not Italian, or have been
changed.
Many surnames are really places. Gazetteers, atlases, and
place-name books help to nail them down. Often a bit of history
goes with them.
Let me tell you a few clues I tracked down by doing my
research in this unscholarly "wrong end to" manner. It had a
friend from Germany named "Machler." One day I told my friend,
"Ernst, I found a Machler coat of arms, but it was from Zurich,
Switzerland." He replied," Yes, I was born in Zurich. I was
naturalized in Germany."
Once I received a letter from a man in Georgia named "Shadburn."
He thought his surname is German. Mr. Shadburn had in
his papers a coat of arms (A griffin, no colors, crest a demigriffin)
a relative had purchased years ago in South Carolina.
He had written to England but no one could identify it that he
contacted there, and he could not identify it in armories,
peerages, or other British sources. Later he wrote that he knew
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Texas State Genealogical Society. Stirpes, Volume 7, Number 4, December 1967, periodical, December 1967; Fort Worth, TX. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth29581/m1/15/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Genealogical Society.