What's in a name?

In the play Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespear wrote the line "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

When it comes to family history, however, getting the names RIGHT makes quite a bit of difference.

Which is why relying on census records can be a bit precarious. Consider the case of my grandmother, Jane Hutchinson Pendley.

For all of my life I knew my grandmother as "Jane Pendley". On doing a little digging, however, it is clear that as a baby and young child she was known as "Jean" or "Jennie" rather than Jane. I have an original photograph of her at about a year old with the inscription Jennie on the back of the picture. Also, there is a death notice posted The Stroud Messenger, the local paper in Stroud, Oklahoma from July 22, 1910 which reads:

"Edith, wife of Chas. Hutchinson died in Arizona, Sunday July 17, 1910 aged 38 yrs. 6 mo. and 16 day. The remains were brought to this city Thursday, July 21, 1910 and the funeral services were conducted from the Christian church by Rev. Tener, the pastor, at 3 o'clock after which a large procession of sorrowing relatives and friends followed her to her last resting place in the Stroud cemetery. Mrs. Hutchinson had not been well for some time past and some two months ago her husband sent her and her daughter Jennie to Arizona to spend the summer, believing that the change of climate would help her some what shattered health. Only a few days before Mr. Hutchinson received the telegram announcing her death, he had received a letter from his wife stating that her health seemed to be improving. The deceased leaves a husband and two children to mourn their loss. The deepest sympathy is extended the grief stricken husband and sorrowing children."

I have letters to my grandmother from her brother's wife that are addressed to "Jean".

So when or why she started going by  Jane is anybody's guess.

However, you can imagine my confusion when I found her listed on the 1910 census as "Annie". What's up with that?

Here is the thing to be aware of when working with old census information. What you will find on the index of an old census is only as accurate as the people along the chain. First, some person went to gather the info. That person wrote down whatever they were told. Sometimes they were getting the information directly from the person in question. Sometimes they were told the information second hand by whoever was available at the time.

So right at the start there was room for error as they may or may not have been told accurate information, they may or may not have heard accurately what they were told, and then they wrote it down in penmanship and spelling that more times than I can count were beyond questionable.

Fast forward many years to some well meaning soul who was deciphering that old penmanship on original records in order to index the census. In the case of my grandmother, I'm virtually certain this is where the error was made. I believe what was written down was supposed to be "Jennie". But the microfilm of the old record shows a faded, loopy handwriting that is a bit ambiguous. I'm sure the person doing the indexing THOUGHT it said Annie, so that was what was typed in and is what pops up in some census search tools.

With a bit of digging however, it is possible to get the image of the actual 1910 census record for Oklahoma and look for myself at what was written:

So by looking carefully at this I feel confident I can say with out any reservation, my grandmother who I knew throughout my life as Jane Pendley was born Jennie Hutchinson, daughter of Charles and Edith Hutchinson.
And, as Paul Harvey would say THAT is the rest of the story!