Surnames and use of "De"

["Erlinda Castanon-Long" <longsjourney@...>]

Welcome to the wonderful world of genealogy! What I'm sharing may 
sound very trying but I must tell you the longer you do genealogy 
the more satisfaction you get when you work long and hard and your 
family is reclaimed after going through many records. I found a 
record I'd had for 3 years the key to taking my Gutierrez family 
from 1750 in Jalisco to 1650 in Michoacan! At other times I can 
thank another person who's shared their information and records that 
opened a door for me. My husband had done the records for his family 
back to 1854 and found someone else online through Familysearch.com 
who'd done that line back to mid 1500's and was more than willing to 
share including documentation.

When I started reading records I would discard all names that were 
spelled differently... WRONG!!! I now know the families seldom even 
saw the records and the people giving the information were not 
always the people the records were about.  There were many times 
where the scribe put the grandparents as parents and the birth dates 
were very wrong. I have a marriage record for an ancestor that says 
he was 50 but he was really 72 when he married a second time! 

You may find the people using different names during their lifetime, 
I have an ancestor who appears as Antonio Carmen, Jose Carmel, 
Antonio del Carmen but they are all the same person. I've found 
times when the men all used the fathers surname and the women used 
their mothers and grandmothers surnames, they have been very 
challenging to put together as siblings.

I've found the spelling of their surnames change from record to 
record with the scribe and local customs being in control. De la 
Cueva becomes Cuevas, De Los Rios became Del Rio and then Rios...  
De Avila became Davila and Avila. De la Torre sometimes stayed that 
way or changed to Torres. And then their are the families who got to 
chose which one of the hyphenated surname to use.. Villasenor y Jaso 
became Villa or Villasenor with other siblings using just Jaso!

It sounds confusing but once you get familiar with the names and 
style of the records for that area it all comes together.. The parts 
of the puzzle finally fall into place and you understand why we do 
this... to honor our families and to reclaim a history many of us 
never knew existed.
Best wishes in your search
Linda in Everett