Variant spellings are the bane of the genealogist’s existence.
Often common sense and a little thought given to how a name was pronounced will answer the problem. It’s still helpful though when a relative provides some direct evidence they were aware of their name being spelled incorrectly.
That’s exactly what William Ehmen did in March of 1889 when applying for his passport. He explains that while he writes his name as “Ehmen,” it was spelled as “Eman” when he enlisted in a Civil War unit because he did not speak English at the time.
It is really not much of a trick to see how Ehmen could be spelled as Eman. But it’s nice to have the explanation in the handwriting of the individual.
And apparently between his Civil War enlistment and March of 1889, Ehmen learned English.
United States Passport 952, issued for William Eman on 2 April 1889.
We won’t correct his spelling of “pronunciation” either.
This item was located in the United States passport database on Ancestry.com.
3 Responses
What an interesting find. Does this piece of information help or hinder ur searches?
Confirmation of alternate spellings is always helpful. The variant in this case isn’t difficult to imagine, but it’s always good to have evidence that it’s the same person in writing.
It is also nice to have something that was written in your ancestor’s own hand.