Page 22 - Family History
P. 22
Miscellaneous
Names and Spelling
The spelling of names can pose problems for genealogy researchers.
Long ago many people couldn’t write. Some that could write had only limited
ability and some were just bad at it. Some spelled phonetically – writing as
they heard it. This was often the case for immigration officers when confronted
with a difficult to pronounce name – they made their best attempt at it and once
written down – it became permanent. Add in the very frequently found “typo” -
a simple mistake gone unnoticed - and you can see how records and documents
are prone to spelling errors.
The surname POULSEN is often found misspelled as POULSON, PAULSEN
or PAULSON. It is patronymic meaning “son of POUL”. In Danish, “sen”
translates as son. The Americanized version is “son” translates as son – and so
you often find sen/son name variations: POULSEN/POULSON,
HANSEN/HANSON.
My great grandfather, Niels Poulsen and his brother Bertel came to America
from Denmark. Bertel for some reason decided to change the spelling of his last
name. Bertel (and all of his descendants) even though closely related go by
Paulsen.
People have been
misspelling my
name all my life
… beginning on
the day I was
born!
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