By Gail Shaffer Blankenau
The famous line, “What’s in a name?” comes from Shakespeare’s famous romance Romeo and Juliet. In the play, Juliet asserts that names do not truly matter. After all, a rose would smell as sweet no matter what it was called. But for genealogists, names are what we start with, and if we are unaware of name changes, we can go down time-consuming, research rabbit holes. The “scent” of our trail—whether sweet or not—begins with names.
Why do name changes occur? One reason is “Americanizing” or simplifying a difficult surname. My husband’s grandparents shortened the surname Blankenaufulland to Blankenau. Many a Schmidt became a Smith. Adoption is another reason for a name change. Still other people changed their names in order to hide from something, and these cases can be the most difficult to solve. I once had a client whose ancestor did just that—he went west and changed his name. DNA solved that particular problem.
Where do historians find evidence of name changes? Records may not always exist, particularly in cases in which people migrate and establish a new identity. However, there are documentary sources to which we can turn. In addition to naturalization records, for males, military records, especially pensions, may contain a record of aliases.
In cases of legal name changes, most people went to a court. Depending on when and where your ancestors lived, court records can vary in their availability. Court records can be difficult to use because there are no real indexes, although dockets listing the parties involved can help.
Fortunately, for those with Massachusetts roots, researchers have a valuable resource in the book, List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed in Massachusetts 1780-1893.[1]Prior to 1851, people wanting to change their names would petition the state legislature. As long as the change was for an honest purpose, these petitions were granted. After 1851, the county district court was the general jurisdiction for legal name changes. In 1891, the legislature passed the Act, which directed the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to compile a list of name changes.
This work is searchable at Ancestry.com, but only as an index entry. Even better, the book has been imaged at www.HathiTrust.org, so researchers can see the entire entry for the name change.
A search for Nickerson within this source provides records for people who both changed their name to Nickerson as well as from Nickerson. Sometimes the reason for the change, for instance, adoption, is given. At other times it is not.
In the case of Eliza Jones Collins, the entry in the book for Massachusetts names changes does not indicate the reason for her name change to Eliza Jones Nickerson, just that the decree was in Barnstable County on 4 December 1860.[2]Despite no reason given, her story is easy to discern. Born the daughter of Seth and Diana (Jones) Collins on 4 April 1842, she was still in her parents’ household for the 1850 census.[3]Although she had siblings, they all died young, and she was just five years old when her mother also died.[4]Her father, as a mariner, could not care for her, so he placed young Eliza with his sister, Clarissa Collins Nickerson. By 1855, Seth Jones had remarried,[5]but it may be that his sister Clarissa was not willing to give up her niece, whom she loved like a daughter. Eliza’s father consented to her formal adoption and name change in 1860.[6]
Nickerson Family Association already had Benjamin Osborn Nickerson, born 12 August 1885, listed as adopted in their records.[7]He was the adopted (and only) son of Henry Osborne Nickerson (Benjamin7, Benjamin6, Benjamin5, Benjamin4, Samuel3, Samuel2, William1) and his wife Ida Florence McInness, of Fall River, Massachusetts. Indeed, a legal decree from the Bristol County, MA, Court declared a baby Kelley to be Benjamin O. Nickerson on January 7, 1887, listing the reason as adoption.[8]There was no first name furnished to go by. Because the baby Kelly was born in either Boston or Charlestown, discerning his birth parents would require much research, centering on the time in 1885 in which baby Kelly was born. It could be that he was from Kelley family of Cape Cod or one of the numerous Irish immigrant families that flooded the Boston area.
Flora H. Crowell legally became Flora H. Nickerson on August 14, 1866, at Harwich.[9]In her case, we can bracket the censuses in which she appears under the two names. She is almost certainly the Flora H. Nickerson age 12, in the household of Harrison Nickerson, age 55, and Nancy Nickerson, age 53, in the 1870 Harwich census.[10]
To what Crowell family did she belong before her 1866 adoption? In the 1865 Massachusetts State Census for Harwich, Flora H. Crowell, age 7, is in a large household headed by Oliver Crowell and wife Lydia (Eldridge) Crowell, who are her likely birth parents.[11]The Nickerson Family, Part 4, list Harrison and Nancy (Nickerson) Nickerson, as childless, although it notes that the 1870 census shows Flora H. Nickerson in the household.[12]It seems clear that Harrison and Nancy adopted Flora to help them out in their old age. Adopted at age 8, she definitely knew who her parents and siblings were, but her adoption was complete, and her death record names her father as “Harrington” (sic) Nickerson.[13]
Some cases are more difficult. In February 1818, Thomas Smalley Delano of Boston was “allowed to take the name of Nathaniel Lewis Nickerson.”[14]In the February 1819 legislative session, Susanna Lewis Nicholson Delano, daughter of Mercy Delano, of Boston, took the name of Mary Elizabeth Nicholson.[15]Although their names were changed in different sessions and Thomas transcribed as changing to Nickerson and Susanna to Nicholson, these two individuals look related.
Note that one petition named the mother as Mercy Delano, while Thomas Smalley Delano’s parents were unnamed. We look to other records to see if we can determine the birth parents. The Boston vital records listed Nathaniel Lewis “Nicholson” formerly Thomas S. Delano, as a son of Sylvanus and Mary Delano, born in Duxbury 19 June 1800. In the same list, Susanna Lewis Delano, also named as a daughter of Sylvanus and Mercy Delano, was born at Duxbury 14 May 1813, changed her name to Mary Elizabeth Nicholson.[16]In this Boston list, both of them are named as changing to Nicholson, rather than Nickerson and the record suggests that the two were brother and sister.
If these birthdates are correct, then Thomas Delano / Nathaniel L. Nickerson was 18 years of age when he petitioned the legislature. If Thomas was born a Delano in Duxbury in 1800, then it stands to reason that his father “Sylvanus” should be listed in the census there that year. Indeed, there is a Sylvanus Delano who appears in both the 1800 and 1810 censuses. Although his children’s births do not appear in the transcribed births for Duxbury, a death for a Sylvanus Delano is listed on 13 March 1818, a month AFTER Thomas’s petition was granted to become Nathaniel Lewis Nickerson.[17]
Sylvanus Delano died seized of enough property that his will and estate furnish further records. Sylvanus names his granddaughter “Susanna Lewis Nickerson Delano,” leaving her $5.00, and Thomas Smalley Delano in a longer list of other grandchildren, who would divide his estate equally. These grandchildren would certainly seem to include the two persons who sought to change their name to Nickerson in 1818/1819 Boston. The problem was that Sylvanus’s estate was “insufficient to pay the debts of the estate.”[18]
Good genealogical practice prompts looking at originals whenever possible. In response to an inquiry for the underlying petitions that appear in the Massachusetts list of Name Changes, the petitions for both Thomas Smalley Delano and Susanna Lewis “Nicholson” Delano provide more clues.
The actual petition contains the signatures of both Thomas S. Delano, a mariner, and his mother and guardian Mercy Delano. It may be that the Boston vital records are correct and that Thomas and Susanna’s father was Sylvanus, deceased. That they both appear as grandchildren in the 1818 will of Sylvanus Delano of Duxbury, suggests that their father was Sylvanus, Jr. Susanna’s petition provides an even more intriguing clue.
Petition for Name Change, Massachusetts General Court, from the “bill packet,” for the legislative session February 19, 1819, Chapter 99; sent in an email from the Massachusetts state archives to Gail S. Blankenau
This time Mercy asked for her daughter’s name change, wanting her to “bear the name of a deceased relation.” Her birth name already contained “Nicholson” in it; and it may be that Mercy was related to Nickersons or Nicholsons. Lewis Nickerson (or Nicholson) would seem to be the deceased relation that Mercy and two of her children wanted to honor.
More research will be needed to tease out the rest of the story.
Once we begin to suspect a name change, whether formalized or not, we need to make note of it in our own records. Christa Cowan, who blogs for Ancestry, has a YouTube video with her recommendations.[19]She uses Family Tree Maker to add an alternate name. Another option is to add a fact with the name change. Likewise, at Ancestry.com, a fact regarding a name change can be added to the database. Cowan discourages the use of “also known as” or alias, an opinion with which I agree. She uses the term to designate nicknames, while I use quote marks to indicate the name a person went by, whether it is a middle name or a nickname. A pseudonym, or alias, is used in addition to the original or true name and does not require a legal sanction.
In the case of Eliza Jones Collins Nickerson, I have the whole story. For her, I have two sets of parents at Ancestry.com for Eliza Jones Collins Nickerson. Note you can designate “biological” as well as “adopted”:
It is interesting to see how people navigated legal changes in their surname in order to secure their place in another family. In most of the Nickerson cases in Massachusetts, the reason was for adoption. When no useful compilations exist, if you suspect a name change, a check of court records as well as recorded petitions to the state legislature may be in order.
As genealogists know, there is a lot in a name, no matter what the name of the rose. In addition to whacky spellings, name variants, and people who drop in and out of the record, adding the possibility of a wholesale name change may be another consideration for our brick walls.
[1]Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed in Massachusetts 1780-1893(Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1893).
[2]List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed, 156. Table for Barnstable County.
[3]Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, Falmouth Births, Marriages, Deaths, 1780-1858, p. 223. 1850 U. S. Census, Barnstable, Barnstable, MA, image database, www.Ancestry,com, Dwelling 317, Family #375, Reuben Small household, Elisa J., age three, was in the separate family group with her father Seth as head and mother “Diannah”.
[4]Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, Falmouth Births, Marriages, Deaths, 1780-1858, p. 223.
[5]Seth Collins married at New Bedford, 24 Aug. 1855, to Mary L. Crocker, Massachusetts Marriage Records 1840-1915, digital image, Ancestry.com.
[6]Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, List of persons whose names have been changed in Massachusetts, 1780-1892(Boston: Wright and Potter, 1893), digital book, www.Ancestry.com,156, Eliza Jones Collins to Eliza Jones Nickerson in 1860.
[7]WEN #722.
[8]Citing Fall River records, Adoption #3961. See also Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,List of persons whose names have been changed in Massachusetts, 1780-1892 (Boston: Wright and Potter, 1893), digital book, www.Ancestry.com,280, citing decree of January 7, 1887, [no first name] Kelley, to Benjamin O. Nickerson, Fall River.
[9]List of persons whose names have been changed in Massachusetts, 176.
[10]1870 U. S. Census, Barnstable County, MA, Harwich, image database, www.Ancestry,com, p. 218, dwelling 330, family 355, Harrison Nickerson household. Harrison is #4554 in Part 4, while his wife Nancy is #2308.
[11]1865 Massachusetts State Census, Barnstable Co., MA, Dennis, page too dark to read, dwelling 2, family 3, Oliver Crowell household. Oliver Crowell was a mariner.
[12]Nickerson Family Part 4, 552.
[13]Massachusetts Vital Records 1841-1910, image database, www.americanancsetors.org, Flora H. (Nickerson) Crosby, age 46, died Whitman, Plymouth, MA, 21 Dec. 1906, daughter of “Harrington Nickerson,” Commonwealth of Massachusetts Return of Death.
[14]Ibid., 32. All references to this work will be from the imaged pages at www.hathitrust.org
[15]Ibid., 34.
[16]Massachusetts Town and Vital Records 1620-1988, image database, www.Ancestry.com, Boston, Index to Marriage Intentions, 88.
[17]Massachusetts Town and Vital Records 1620-1988, image database, Duxbury Vital Records Transcripts, p. 372.
What’s in a Name?
Gail Shaffer Blankenau
NFA October 2020
The famous line, “What’s in a name?” comes from Shakespeare’s famous romance Romeo and Juliet. In the play, Juliet asserts that names do not truly matter. After all, a rose would smell as sweet no matter what it was called. But for genealogists, names are what we start with, and if we are unaware of name changes, we can go down time-consuming, research rabbit holes. The “scent” of our trail—whether sweet or not—begins with names.
Why do name changes occur? One reason is “Americanizing” or simplifying a difficult surname. My husband’s grandparents shortened the surname Blankenaufulland to Blankenau. Many a Schmidt became a Smith. Adoption is another reason for a name change. Still other people changed their names in order to hide from something, and these cases can be the most difficult to solve. I once had a client whose ancestor did just that—he went west and changed his name. DNA solved that particular problem.
Where do historians find evidence of name changes? Records may not always exist, particularly in cases in which people migrate and establish a new identity. However, there are documentary sources to which we can turn. In addition to naturalization records, for males, military records, especially pensions, may contain a record of aliases.
In cases of legal name changes, most people went to a court. Depending on when and where your ancestors lived, court records can vary in their availability. Court records can be difficult to use because there are no real indexes, although dockets listing the parties involved can help.
Fortunately, for those with Massachusetts roots, researchers have a valuable resource in the book, List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed in Massachusetts 1780-1893.[1]Prior to 1851, people wanting to change their names would petition the state legislature. As long as the change was for an honest purpose, these petitions were granted. After 1851, the county district court was the general jurisdiction for legal name changes. In 1891, the legislature passed the Act, which directed the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to compile a list of name changes.
This work is searchable at Ancestry.com, but only as an index entry. Even better, the book has been imaged at www.HathiTrust.org, so researchers can see the entire entry for the name change.
A search for Nickerson within this source provides records for people who both changed their name to Nickerson as well as from Nickerson. Sometimes the reason for the change, for instance, adoption, is given. At other times it is not.
In the case of Eliza Jones Collins, the entry in the book for Massachusetts names changes does not indicate the reason for her name change to Eliza Jones Nickerson, just that the decree was in Barnstable County on 4 December 1860.[2]Despite no reason given, her story is easy to discern. Born the daughter of Seth and Diana (Jones) Collins on 4 April 1842, she was still in her parents’ household for the 1850 census.[3]Although she had siblings, they all died young, and she was just five years old when her mother also died.[4]Her father, as a mariner, could not care for her, so he placed young Eliza with his sister, Clarissa Collins Nickerson. By 1855, Seth Jones had remarried,[5]but it may be that his sister Clarissa was not willing to give up her niece, whom she loved like a daughter. Eliza’s father consented to her formal adoption and name change in 1860.[6]
Nickerson Family Association already had Benjamin Osborn Nickerson, born 12 August 1885, listed as adopted in their records.[7]He was the adopted (and only) son of Henry Osborne Nickerson (Benjamin7, Benjamin6, Benjamin5, Benjamin4, Samuel3, Samuel2, William1) and his wife Ida Florence McInness, of Fall River, Massachusetts. Indeed, a legal decree from the Bristol County, MA, Court declared a baby Kelley to be Benjamin O. Nickerson on January 7, 1887, listing the reason as adoption.[8]There was no first name furnished to go by. Because the baby Kelly was born in either Boston or Charlestown, discerning his birth parents would require much research, centering on the time in 1885 in which baby Kelly was born. It could be that he was from Kelley family of Cape Cod or one of the numerous Irish immigrant families that flooded the Boston area.
Flora H. Crowell legally became Flora H. Nickerson on August 14, 1866, at Harwich.[9]In her case, we can bracket the censuses in which she appears under the two names. She is almost certainly the Flora H. Nickerson age 12, in the household of Harrison Nickerson, age 55, and Nancy Nickerson, age 53, in the 1870 Harwich census.[10]
To what Crowell family did she belong before her 1866 adoption? In the 1865 Massachusetts State Census for Harwich, Flora H. Crowell, age 7, is in a large household headed by Oliver Crowell and wife Lydia (Eldridge) Crowell, who are her likely birth parents.[11]The Nickerson Family, Part 4, list Harrison and Nancy (Nickerson) Nickerson, as childless, although it notes that the 1870 census shows Flora H. Nickerson in the household.[12]It seems clear that Harrison and Nancy adopted Flora to help them out in their old age. Adopted at age 8, she definitely knew who her parents and siblings were, but her adoption was complete, and her death record names her father as “Harrington” (sic) Nickerson.[13]
Some cases are more difficult. In February 1818, Thomas Smalley Delano of Boston was “allowed to take the name of Nathaniel Lewis Nickerson.”[14]In the February 1819 legislative session, Susanna Lewis Nicholson Delano, daughter of Mercy Delano, of Boston, took the name of Mary Elizabeth Nicholson.[15]Although their names were changed in different sessions and Thomas transcribed as changing to Nickerson and Susanna to Nicholson, these two individuals look related.
Note that one petition named the mother as Mercy Delano, while Thomas Smalley Delano’s parents were unnamed. We look to other records to see if we can determine the birth parents. The Boston vital records listed Nathaniel Lewis “Nicholson” formerly Thomas S. Delano, as a son of Sylvanus and Mary Delano, born in Duxbury 19 June 1800. In the same list, Susanna Lewis Delano, also named as a daughter of Sylvanus and Mercy Delano, was born at Duxbury 14 May 1813, changed her name to Mary Elizabeth Nicholson.[16]In this Boston list, both of them are named as changing to Nicholson, rather than Nickerson and the record suggests that the two were brother and sister.
If these birthdates are correct, then Thomas Delano / Nathaniel L. Nickerson was 18 years of age when he petitioned the legislature. If Thomas was born a Delano in Duxbury in 1800, then it stands to reason that his father “Sylvanus” should be listed in the census there that year. Indeed, there is a Sylvanus Delano who appears in both the 1800 and 1810 censuses. Although his children’s births do not appear in the transcribed births for Duxbury, a death for a Sylvanus Delano is listed on 13 March 1818, a month AFTER Thomas’s petition was granted to become Nathaniel Lewis Nickerson.[17]
Sylvanus Delano died seized of enough property that his will and estate furnish further records. Sylvanus names his granddaughter “Susanna Lewis Nickerson Delano,” leaving her $5.00, and Thomas Smalley Delano in a longer list of other grandchildren, who would divide his estate equally. These grandchildren would certainly seem to include the two persons who sought to change their name to Nickerson in 1818/1819 Boston. The problem was that Sylvanus’s estate was “insufficient to pay the debts of the estate.”[18]
Good genealogical practice prompts looking at originals whenever possible. In response to an inquiry for the underlying petitions that appear in the Massachusetts list of Name Changes, the petitions for both Thomas Smalley Delano and Susanna Lewis “Nicholson” Delano provide more clues.
The actual petition contains the signatures of both Thomas S. Delano, a mariner, and his mother and guardian Mercy Delano. It may be that the Boston vital records are correct and that Thomas and Susanna’s father was Sylvanus, deceased. That they both appear as grandchildren in the 1818 will of Sylvanus Delano of Duxbury, suggests that their father was Sylvanus, Jr. Susanna’s petition provides an even more intriguing clue.
Petition for Name Change, Massachusetts General Court, from the “bill packet,” for the legislative session February 19, 1819, Chapter 99; sent in an email from the Massachusetts state archives to Gail S. Blankenau
This time Mercy asked for her daughter’s name change, wanting her to “bear the name of a deceased relation.” Her birth name already contained “Nicholson” in it; and it may be that Mercy was related to Nickersons or Nicholsons. Lewis Nickerson (or Nicholson) would seem to be the deceased relation that Mercy and two of her children wanted to honor.
More research will be needed to tease out the rest of the story.
Once we begin to suspect a name change, whether formalized or not, we need to make note of it in our own records. Christa Cowan, who blogs for Ancestry, has a YouTube video with her recommendations.[19]She uses Family Tree Maker to add an alternate name. Another option is to add a fact with the name change. Likewise, at Ancestry.com, a fact regarding a name change can be added to the database. Cowan discourages the use of “also known as” or alias, an opinion with which I agree. She uses the term to designate nicknames, while I use quote marks to indicate the name a person went by, whether it is a middle name or a nickname. A pseudonym, or alias, is used in addition to the original or true name and does not require a legal sanction.
In the case of Eliza Jones Collins Nickerson, I have the whole story. For her, I have two sets of parents at Ancestry.com for Eliza Jones Collins Nickerson. Note you can designate “biological” as well as “adopted”:
It is interesting to see how people navigated legal changes in their surname in order to secure their place in another family. In most of the Nickerson cases in Massachusetts, the reason was for adoption. When no useful compilations exist, if you suspect a name change, a check of court records as well as recorded petitions to the state legislature may be in order.
As genealogists know, there is a lot in a name, no matter what the name of the rose. In addition to whacky spellings, name variants, and people who drop in and out of the record, adding the possibility of a wholesale name change may be another consideration for our brick walls.
[1]Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed in Massachusetts 1780-1893(Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1893).
[2]List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed, 156. Table for Barnstable County.
[3]Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, Falmouth Births, Marriages, Deaths, 1780-1858, p. 223. 1850 U. S. Census, Barnstable, Barnstable, MA, image database, www.Ancestry,com, Dwelling 317, Family #375, Reuben Small household, Elisa J., age three, was in the separate family group with her father Seth as head and mother “Diannah”.
[4]Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, Falmouth Births, Marriages, Deaths, 1780-1858, p. 223.
[5]Seth Collins married at New Bedford, 24 Aug. 1855, to Mary L. Crocker, Massachusetts Marriage Records 1840-1915, digital image, Ancestry.com.
[6]Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, List of persons whose names have been changed in Massachusetts, 1780-1892(Boston: Wright and Potter, 1893), digital book, www.Ancestry.com,156, Eliza Jones Collins to Eliza Jones Nickerson in 1860.
[7]WEN #722.
[8]Citing Fall River records, Adoption #3961. See also Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,List of persons whose names have been changed in Massachusetts, 1780-1892 (Boston: Wright and Potter, 1893), digital book, www.Ancestry.com,280, citing decree of January 7, 1887, [no first name] Kelley, to Benjamin O. Nickerson, Fall River.
[9]List of persons whose names have been changed in Massachusetts, 176.
[10]1870 U. S. Census, Barnstable County, MA, Harwich, image database, www.Ancestry,com, p. 218, dwelling 330, family 355, Harrison Nickerson household. Harrison is #4554 in Part 4, while his wife Nancy is #2308.
[11]1865 Massachusetts State Census, Barnstable Co., MA, Dennis, page too dark to read, dwelling 2, family 3, Oliver Crowell household. Oliver Crowell was a mariner.
[12]Nickerson Family Part 4, 552.
[13]Massachusetts Vital Records 1841-1910, image database, www.americanancsetors.org, Flora H. (Nickerson) Crosby, age 46, died Whitman, Plymouth, MA, 21 Dec. 1906, daughter of “Harrington Nickerson,” Commonwealth of Massachusetts Return of Death.
[14]Ibid., 32. All references to this work will be from the imaged pages at www.hathitrust.org
[15]Ibid., 34.
[16]Massachusetts Town and Vital Records 1620-1988, image database, www.Ancestry.com, Boston, Index to Marriage Intentions, 88.
[17]Massachusetts Town and Vital Records 1620-1988, image database, Duxbury Vital Records Transcripts, p. 372.
[19]Christa Cowan, “How to Handle Name Changes in Your Family Tree,” YouTube video presentation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yo3fOWZCnI