Vanessa WoodI’m working on a family of immigrants dating from the early 1900s. There are many “curve balls” to unraveling their story as they settled into their new homeland. Finding the family in the records entails searching alternative name spellings and nicknames.
I didn’t find who I was looking for, but I stumbled on a clear example of a name change. When researching immigrant ancestors we often hear the myth that names were anglicized by immigration officials. Names may have changed spellings at the border because of pronunciation. Or perhaps an immigrant wrote in a Cyrillic script, or in Asian characters, or in any other form of writing that didn’t use the English alphabet–well, you can imagine the official’s confusion trying to write it on documents.
But sometimes immigrants chose to change their names. Mandel Braker immigrated to the United States in 1914. He was born in Austria and left Hamburg, Germany for the United States during World War I. Seven years later he filed a petition to become a naturalized citizen. At the top of the petition he stated his intent to change his name from Mandel to Max (see image).
Our ancestors were creative in the spelling of their names and we need to be too when we look for them in records.
United States, Petition for Naturalization, Pennsylvania, Mandel Braker, 11 February 1921; imaged, "Pennsylvania, Eastern District Naturalization Records, 1795-1952," FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9PTZ-3VWC : accessed 20 February 2025).FEATURED IMAGE: Wikimedia, “Landing of Prince Albert at Dover early proof engraving by William Miller after Knell.jpg” (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Landing_of_Prince_Albert_at_Dover_early_proof_engraving_by_William_Miller_after_Knell.jpg : 21 July 2023 : accessed 20 February 2025).
