What's in a Name?

On this page spelling with double H

Very Often, when dealing with old documents,  we researchers and historians find the names of ancestors and relatives spelled wrong...or at least wrong as far as you have always known the family name to be spelled.  Sometimes you know what the family preference was for a given name, but often you don't know because existing records show a name a particular person spelled several different ways. A hundred or more years ago people who could read and write were not so common as they are today and those that could write often spelled words like they sound, regardless of what today is considered the "right" way to spell it.  

A while back though I was researching the family of my wife's paternal Grandmother. Gladys Fern Clark.  Clark is pretty easy, not usually found messed up in old written material, however, the mother of Gladys F Clark was Louisa Ann Welchhons before her marriage to James Clark.  The Welchhons family was one of the hardest nuts to crack because the name appears in all sorts of records spelled a variety of different ways.  Welshonce, Welshons, Welchance, Welshans, Welshous, and Welchanch, Welchouse and Welshhons.  I finally got a look at the Welchhons Family Bible and discovered the name was not even spelled the same way on the same page of the family information recorded in that Bible.  

I wasn't sure what to do as far as adding their names to my family tree, which particular record is correct, and which one is the one most often accepted as correct by the family?  Since I don't know anyone alive today who might shed some light on the question I felt I had to pick something, right or wrong.  I wanted to be consistent in the spelling of surnames throughout the tree, even if some old records show spellings different from what I am using on my tree. 

On this page a single H was used.  

I finally settled on the spelling of Welshhons because that was the spelling carved into their tombstones at the cemetery where Louisa and her parents are buried as well as some cousins of her father.  That spelling was consistent for a half dozen burials at that cemetery though I don't remember seeing that spelling anywhere other than those tombstones.  It may or may not be the preferred spelling of any Welshhons living today, and may not be the way Louisa's family thought the name should be spelled, but I opted to record that on my tree in order to be consistent through the tree. 

As researchers, we probably put more importance on name spelling than did some of our ancestors.  

  

  

Democracy vs Dictatorship

We are a nation of humans. No two humans have ever agreed on everything.  Throughout history, various groups of humans have tried different systems designed to minimize the bad results that can happen when humans do disagree.

Instead of throwing rocks and spears at one another to settle our differences our forefathers gave us a democratic system of government that includes a constitution, an independent judicial system, an independent press, and a government based on the rule of law.  It can sometimes be a messy system and sometimes it seems that those on either side of a disagreement do not gain a thing.  Sometimes issues are left unresolved for a very long time.  For more than 200 years our democratic system has kept us (mostly) from picking up rocks and beating the brains out of those we don't agree with.

Through history groups of humans have tried all sorts of methods of living together.  Frequently dictatorships have been tried, sometimes willingly, and sometimes dictatorships were thrust upon them unwillingly.  I recently read a really good description of the difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship.  Democracy is about means, a dictatorship about ends. The ends are always those things that increase the power and prestige of the dictator. A system led by a dictator is in a lot of ways less messy.  Everyone does what #1 wants, end of story.  Dictators care only about the end result...how they get to that end result is of no consequence to them.  

That brings us to President Trump.  Whoa!! you say?  No, I am not suggesting Trump is a dictator, he is not, at least not yet. It is worrisome that he has on more than one occasion expressed admiration for several world leaders of that variety but admiring and being are not the same.  A core duty of a president is to protect American Democracy (all that messy stuff that are about the means, not the ends) but he has failed at that again and again.  

Shutting down the government in order to get his way on a controversial issue is not protecting democracy.  He used the government and almost a million government workers as bargaining chips.   

He has demonized the press and calls them the "enemies of the people". He has attacked judges who have ruled against him.  He has encouraged followers to actual violence against those who attempt to speak out against him.  He has had conversations with Vladimir Putin of which no one else knows what was discussed, even other members of his administration.  Since day one he has not tried to unify this nation.   

No,  I can't say Donald Trump is a dictator but he has shown no desire to nurture our democracy either. I'm not sure he even understands our democracy.