Recently I had blogged about the problems with a last name such as mine. Well here’s an update with a picture. Seems Discover Card “College” has figured out, perhaps phonetically, where I live. Incidentally, I have lived here since 1992 – my name hasn’t changed that I know of.
Continuing, I imagine that since the last name went from “St.Jean” to “SA Jeine”, they might as well go full throttle and change my first name “Phil” to “Vill”. Veal? Perhaps the originator was from Montreal, but I seem to recall the pronunciation there for “Phil” was more like “Feeel”. BTW, I’m about 35-40 years past traditional college age.
I am fully aware that this is a problem that many folks doing genealogy research encounter. Before I go into that, I will point out that I am still alive. Often times in the Census records, it might be difficult to locate ones ancestors. For example, you Cyr folks, some federal census records might have you as Cyr, Seer, Sear, and so on. For you Therriault families, you might be Theriaut, Terrio, etc. Basically an English speaking guy going into a French speaking town and trying to figure what the heck he needs to write. Not that all of the census records are like this, but quite a few are. I imagine other national origins are similar.
To make some things interesting, the St.Jean ancestry can be traced to Louis Anctil who was born in 1673 in Saint-Pair de Ducey, Normandy, France emigrating to Canada at some point. According to what I know, Louis was also known as “Louis Anctil Dit St. Jean”. In some circles, the Dit part is often hyphenated, so “Louis Anctil-Dit-St.Jean”. This family, or parts left of it, eventually settled in northern Maine in the latter 1700’s. And when the census takers eventually caught up to them, the census takers couldn’t handle the long name like that in such a small box on the form let alone how to pronounce it. So some took the Anctil surname and others took the St.Jean surname by virtue of the census taker’s patience. Others have suggested that the surname split had to do with criminal activity but my great uncle Lettuce assures me, from jail, that they only made small batches of whiskey for personal use.
So back to the immediate point. I find receiving mail such as this to be humorous for my benefit. I can throw it away saying “nope, no one here by that name”. Comes in handy if it’s a bill – “Nope, never got it!”. I mean think about it, how would I know if it was really for me anyway; and if it was, then have the time to help them fix it. Of course I jest a little bit. Next time send a twenty with that.