I received a question this week about Ella's last name. We know that, in Sweden, children took as their last name the first name of their father followed by "son" or "dotter". Thus, shouldn't Ella's last name be "Ericsdotter" since her father was Eric Persson?
The Swedes took some liberty with the last names, just as we've seen here in the United States with various spellings. My own first name sometimes appears as Dianne or Diana. And our last name of Linn has been seen in documents as Lynn or Lind.
The same is true for the Swedish documents. Ella's last name could appear as Ericsdotter, Ericksdotter, Eriksdotter, or Ersdotter. They are interchangeable. When doing research, we just have to be sure that all other information, such as date of birth, spouse, children, place of birth, all match.
Hope that helps.
No comments:
Post a Comment