First Name or Given Name Variations

 First off, there are so many websites to learn about names.  Baby naming websites, meaning of name websites, and the same top sites always come up during a google search.  Finally I found a resource that I find really useful for genealogy, NamepediA, and I love it for several reasons.

1. Broad research can become more specific and targeted

For places of birth or origin that merely list "Austria-Hungary" that is a huge, huge question mark because if that is the only fact given then you still do not know much about where that person came from.  So, when searching records, especially religious records that may even use a latin variation of a name, it is hard to know what name your ancestor will be listed under.  For example, if we take the common name Henry.  My ancestor Matilda Simon listed that her father's name was Henry, and they were from somewhere in the Austrio-Hungarian empire.  I was certain that Henry didn't sound Hungarian to me, or Magyar, or Polish, or Czech, or whatever other ethnicity they may be although they were living under the larger Austrio-Hungarian umbrella.

This web is genius (see below).  While I still do not have the record for Henry Simon, I have a great starting place to dig a little deeper into my research.  Maybe the record was destroyed, maybe it isn't indexed, or possibly I just haven't searched hard enough, but now I have more tools to complete my research!

2. When you do finally find the record and are able to verify that it is in fact the ancestor you are looking for, you may have more clues about their ethnicity or culture based on which name variation they are using.  Some records have listed Matilda as Magyar, so if I do find her father's records and see his name listed as Amerigo, that might be one more indicator that if I follow the lead for Magyar research I am on the right path.

3. You would be surprised when this comes in handy!  The reason I am posting today is because I saw a ship manifest for someone of interest who was coming from Chorużowce in northeastern Poland, bordered by Belarus and Lithuania, and not far from Augustow or Białystok.  I saw the first name (given name) Zulka.  Now, Zulka very well have kept her  name in the US, but I knew there would probably be records with her new, Anglicized name.  While Zulka didn't really give me any hits, I can expect that maybe she would use her middle name, or a general name when coming to the US.  Or, something that might sound vaguely somewhat like Zulka.  I even found a Zulka who then went by "Joyce" in the U.S..  For her travel partner Wicenty it is easier to highlight the usefulness of this tool.  

Now if we find a record that might match, and he is listed as Vince or Vincent, it might make more sense.

Happy researching!