It's not a mess, it's normal...
I keep them as what they were known as. There are often problems created by well-meaning but unknowing people, if you remember the movie when the Godfather goes through Ellis Island as a child the worker didn't understand Italian too well, asked him where he came from, and promptly renamed him Corleone. I see you have a bunch of Dutch/Flemish names, if it helps the "van" should be separated from the surname, it's like Mac in Scotland/Ireland or like Bar in Jewish lines. Sometimes you may get further when you search without the "van" (of) or the "van der" (of the). Again I have noticed that in the US these names tend to have been compressed into a single word, eg Vanderbilt (van der Bilt). The end of the surname often tells you where they came from originally, eg my wife has "van wyk" in her tree, the "wyk" bit narrows down to a locality. I have "van Lelyveld" in my line, also spelled Leliveld (lily field), I always search on "Lelyveld" first. The Dutch baptism (doop) registers are available via the net. I try to find some evidence of how the individual spelled their name. Same with census takers... Again, eg, my Turner line is Scots, when my GGGF came to ZA he married an Afrikaans girl. One of their children was named Katherina, but she preferred using the English version - Catherine. When it came to signing for her share of the inheritance guess which name she used? You're right, Katherina! Money is a powerful influence. If it really worries you, you can always choose the majority surname, eg Couwenhoven with the other surname in the notes, or to make it easier for searching just put the other surname in brackets, eg Couwenhoven (Kouwenhoven), or vice versa. Just add a note (and a source) to the surname for those who will follow you, or who you share data with. Legacy also has the ability to make bulk changes so once you've decided how you want to record them, it's easy to effect the changes. Terry in South Africa From: LegacyUserGroup [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jodi Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 19:54 To: [email protected] Subject: [LegacyUG] what a mess In my genealogy, I have some names Couwenhoven, Kouwenhoven, VanCouwenhoven, VanKouwenhoven, VanCouwenhoven, Conover, Konover, and Covenhoven. I have put them in my genealogy pages, they are mostly mixed up now I have some of the same with the different spellings of the last name, but they were from different sources and I had no idea they were the same people, so now I have this mess in my tree, how do I fix this tangle of mess? Thank you for your time. _____ << ella for Spam Control >> has removed 6175 Spam messages and set aside 118587 Newsletters for me You can use it too - and it's FREE! www.ellaforspam.com
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