Re: Name change in my tree from Beyer to Boyer: Why? How?
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In reply to:
Name change in my tree from Beyer to Boyer: Why? How?
John Young 12/24/10
The best explanation seems to be that the original name was Böyer. (Note the umlaut.) The name could be anglicized by changing the ö to the letters oe. I have seen Götz anglicized to Goetz and pronounced like Gates in English.
In colonial times, things were spelled as they sounded. Apparently Böyer sounded like Beyer to the English speakers who maintained the official records.
In the family that I am familiar with, the transition occurred by the 1790 census when a branch of the immigrant's family were using Boyer, both son and grandson.
But on the 1779 release of the immigrant's executor, the immigrant's children signed using Beyer or Beier in the old German script. Perhaps because the immigrant had signed his last will using Beyer in old German script.
The immigrant himself was shown as Beyer, Boyer, and Byer in the land records. He seems to have prefered Beyer by the 1750s.
This is somewhat complicated by the fact the the immigrant signed a 1771 recorded water right deed using Boyer with no umlaut. But perhaps the recorder left the umlaut off by mistake. (Actually the sealed signature name seems to have been written Bayer and then changed by adding a second connector to the letter y, just up a little higher, as you would expect with a letter o.)
There is no doubt that these were all the same family.
There is no mistaking a letter e for a letter o, so this is not a transcription error in the 1700s.
So was the family name Böyer or did the family just assume it was Böyer and anglicized by the dropping the umlaut? Don't know the answer to that one.