Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
I keep running across cments about the Buntain name being chnged and no one knowing why. some of the names were changed due to phonetic spelling. Others were changed by location. An article I ran across in names in the British Isles showed Buntin, Buntyn, Buntain, Buntayne. Some were in the same areas but spelled the name differently. Some spellings were due to illiteracy of the area. The name as we use it is Scottish, but history shows that the name may have been French or German.
In 1984 I took a Computer History class and learned many extraneous things such as Lord Byron's sister calculated and proved the beginnings of binary code which is used in computer programing--problem? No one had invented the machinery to use it. In 1890 some one whose name eludes me thought, "If punched holes could play music on a piano, why couldn't the same process using holes and the binary code ( 1 and 0, 1 it is there and ) it isn't) be used in columns to process census information. Hence began HOldrith Cards used by IBM until the 1970's. When this happened all person were proscibed to make permanent whatever spelling they used in that census.
So, lets say Thomas Buntain and Jmes Buntain were brothers and lived near each other. One spellled the name Bunton and they other Buntain. From 1890 on those individual families although decended from the same grandfather who may have spelled the name Buntyn began the complex maze that makes genealogy a challenge.
Oter errors were perpetuated by the fact that just because a census taker could read and write did not mean he could spell. Another error happened when a census taker could not find a family at home and had to rely on info from a neighbor who may or may not have known the family well.
All of these things enter into the changing of names spelling. Hope someone finds this interesting.
Carol Hatfield at carolhatfield92@yahoo.com
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:No followups yet |
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/buntain/messages/41.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|