Tuesday, January 21, 2020

A clue why your ancestor changed the spelling of his name?


Working on extracting obituaries from 22 drawers of biographies housed in the Ferris Library at the MAC, Jeanne Coe and I have come upon some interesting stuff. Case in point:

"Eugene S. Eugene, 85, longtime Spokane florist, died yesterday... born in Poland, he'd lived in Spokane for 61 years... his son was also Eugene S. Eugene and "the double name of both the father and son was legally assumed in 1917 when Eugene, Sr., opened his store here. Since his Polish surname was difficult to pronounce, many of his customers called him 'Mr. Eugene.' "
Maybe this scenario does not apply to your family but it surely is food for thought. 

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