Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Thu, 31 May 2007 16:26:41 -0400 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
In a message dated 5/31/2007 12:19:43 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
In Ireland where I am from Gaelic names were systematically changed to
English versions by government officials during English rule. So my family name Ó
Gabhláin was translated to Forkan ('gabhlóg' was a 'fork'). The relationship
of the two names is not readily recognizable. In other cases the names were
just anglicized, so that a similar-sounding name was chosen. Neither approach
seems to have been used in your father-in-law's case!
I expect the English changed many names, not to mention relocated many
people. I had often wondered how one of my ancestors was born in Dublin, Ireland
with the name Armstrong. Ironically, a Spanish American friend reported her
family name of "O'Donnell" became Spanish when the English burned the family
castle and the family fled to Spanish Galicia (whose Gaelic language roots
remain in question) for safety. This Irish Spaniard (now an American citizen)
reported the English routinely rounded up Scottish troublemakers and posted them
in the former homes of Irish troublemakers. Of course, I might add that
Danish and Norwegian Vikings established Dublin as a slave trading center long
before it fell into Irish rule. This makes the Ellis Island tales seem tame by
comparison.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
|
|
|