Exploring A Lesser-Known Genealogy Resource: Sorted By Name

Occasionally, rather than using the search feature on any given big genealogy site, I'll do a Google search instead. Quite often, the top results will lead right back to one of the big sites. But, if you persevere, and scroll far enough, or jump page by page, sometimes you'll find a new resource to check out. Such was the case when I stumbled on Sorted By Name.

To be very clear, this smaller site aggregates public records derived from other sites. It does not claim to be everything for everyone. It does not claim to be a complete listing of anything. Nor does it have a fancy user interface (far from it!) It also does not provide addresses or phone number (as most databases of public information tend to do). It does provide summary information, and links for various record sets (but they don't appear to be super recent.) There's a nice range of years from the mid 1800's to the later1900's, though some states don't seem to be well represented. And if you're really ambitious, you can actually download the source files (but unless you have dreams of being a webmaster yourself, you won't need to). 

The main landing page is simplistic. For the sake of testing the site out, I used 2 names from my mother's side of the family, followed by 2 from my father's. Each search dropped me on the page with the correct surname, but I still had to scroll (or use Ctrl+F) to find the given name on the page. And in one case, I had to move a couple pages ahead (so the search was close, but not spot-on to the correct page). The first 4 searches I did weren't really helpful. Then I tried using my grandfather's name, and it did return 2 results. There was no new information for me though.

I noticed many results seemed to be from an area where my ex-husband has relatives (Missouri), so I tried a name from his side of my tree and finally had success! Was it an earthshattering wonderful result? No, it was simply a confirmation of a SSN and birth in 1885. I tried another name from his mother's side of the family, and again was rewarded with an accurate result. I was pleasantly surprised when search result showed this (I blanked out part of the Social Security number....I know it's public information but still.....):

Again, not earthshattering, but it was interesting to see the various iterations of the daughter's name spelled out. Encouraged, I spent a little time searching for 2 people I know had several marriages each, and where I'm missing the given name for some of the spouses. Sadly, my luck did not continue.

My results were slightly more miss than hit. While search capability is very limited (NO fancy filtering or full text search on this site), the simplistic format of results wasn't entirely displeasing to me (or perhaps the simple HTML site just brings back nostalgic memories of my first website). They claim to have over 400 million entries, and say search engines do not index all their pages. I noticed some areas tended to be represented better than others. New York and Missouri seemed to show up fairly frequently. While Ohio and Florida were less represented in my particular searches.

The site is free to use, and while it certainly wouldn't be my first stop for day to day research, when I find myself doing the same searches over and over on Ancestry, I might just head over to see if anything different pops up on Sorted By Name. Because really, can one ever have enough free resources to investigate? I think not! Cracking a brick wall might happen in the most unexpected place. And sometimes, a change in how data is presented can make something you might not have noticed suddenly click. 

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with the title and search description for this post. All post content was created and written entirely by me. 

Turning the Unknown into the Known

I wasn't feeling particularly motivated to work on records yesterday evening, so I decided to set off in search of....well....the unknown! I had 3 people in my tree I knew were married into the family, but absolutely no clue at all as to their names. Since using 5 underscores doesn't mess up the algorithms, all 3 were listed as "_____ _____" in my tree. Those underscores peered back at me every time I opened my tree. I wanted....no...I needed to know their names. After quite a bit of searching, I've managed to identify all 3!

For the first, it was the husband of one of my 1st cousins 1x removed, who's living so I won't include names. I know she's married because her aunt (my cousin) filled me in on some family information a couple of years ago. My normal jump to FamilyTreeNow only provided some historical data. No clue as to her husband, married surname or where she may be living now. Ancestry wasn't giving up any secrets either. I know I could have just asked my cousin, but sometimes it feels a little awkward when it's not someone I talk to on any kind of regular basis. Not everyone understands just how much we family genealogists have a burning need to place everyone in our tree! I was hopeful I could find the information on my own. I tried Newspapers with no success. Since newspapers (in general) can be goldmines, I have subscriptions to several other sites. I'll be honest, my hopes weren't high. But as it turns out, I was able to find a marriage record in a newspaper from 2017 on GenealogyBank. While it didn't contain anything more than the names and ages, it was enough! Thanks to an uncommon spelling of her given name, I was confident I had the right couple.1 down, 2 to go!

The second was for the 2nd great-grandfather of my ex-husband, William Berendes (1835-1913). I've long known he had more than one wife. His oldest 2 daughters were born 10+ years before his other children, and the age of his 2nd wife eliminated her as a potential mother of these 2 daughters. Further, his will mentioned 2 deceased wives. Many trees show the first wife as Theresa Rawtermundt. The problem was, I wasn't finding any records for a marriage with this name. In fact, searches were only brining up his 2nd wife. William was born in Germany, but he arrived here in the US in 1852. His daughters were born 1861 and 1863. Based on his age at the time of arrival, it was likely the first marriage took place somewhere in the US. I decided to widen my search a little. Using wildcards in William's name did the trick. Instead of using William Berendes, I used Wil*m Ber*des. Using the * allows the algorithm to look for other potential spellings. I was actually expecting to find him listed as Wilhelm, but I turned up a record for William Berandes (with an a not an e) and a Thureza Rodermond. Now to be fair, the indexes may have been transcribed from records where the names were inadvertently spelled incorrectly. But I'm comfortable this is the right couple, and it's a starting point. I'm on the right trail! 2 down, 1 to go!

The final push was for a cousin, also still living so he shall remain nameless in this post, who was married previously, as per the record of his 2nd marriage. Of course I started with his name and year of birth (not helpful on its own), then narrowed only to marriage/divorce records from the US, and then further narrowed to the state of Ohio. The number of results returned wasn't 5 or 10, but I was in the zone and I went through quite a few pages. Finally, I was able to find both the marriage and divorce (even though they stubbornly wouldn't come up on their own when searching by name only). It was by sheer determination I was able to find the 3rd out of 3!

With these 3 names identified, I have no more "_____ ______" staring at me from my tree. I do still have plenty of first or last names still unidentified, but those will wait for another time. So, no matter how many times you've searched before, you never know when one more search will turn up the record you're looking for. Don't assume using the correct name is going to bring up all the records. Be creative! If you don't already, learn to use wildcards. Ancestry has a very helpful page of Search Tips. I've added this link to my Genealogy Toolbox so it's easy to find if you ever need it. How have you managed to find completely unknown names? Do you have any tricks you can share?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Behind the Name

Do you have a favorite name you've encountered in your family research? Mine is my 1st cousin 3x removed - Zytilla Gertrude James (1853-1910). I started wondering where in the world the name Zytilla came from? It certainly hasn't popped up anywhere else in my research. 

I was surfing around and came upon Behind the Name. I really like all the information you can find on both given and surnames. When you first land on the site, you're on the given name page. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the homepage, there's an option for surnames as well. You can browse various names, search, find meanings and related/equivalent/diminutive names, see the popularity change over time in various areas of the world, and even find namesakes and various other bits of information. You can browse names not only by first letter, but by region, mythology, religion and other various categories. There are additional interactive features and message boards if you want to sign up. The site is FREE!

I had fun looking up my name. Doris, seemed to be most popular in the US in the late 1920's and early 1930's. By the time I was born, it was not just falling out of favor, it was plummeting! In fact, the only country where it currently shows any real use (albeit not much) is the Netherlands with 0.080%. I happened to be named after 3 different friends of my mother. Clearly, they were all born when the name was far more common. I was surprised to see all the usages: English, German, Swedish, Danish, Croatian, Ancient Greek, Greek Mythology. I won't bore you with the other facts about my name, but suffice it to say, I thoroughly enjoyed poking around the site as I was writing this post.

Back to Zytille Gertrude! Gertrude probably hasn't been a favorite in a long time. Between 1880-1900 it accounted for about 1% of the female names per this site. Since then, it's fallen sharply and stopped registering on their graph in the mid-1960's. But how about Zytilla? Well, there's absolutely nothing on the site. So, like all good sleuths, I Googled. Again, nothing! I opened up ChatGPT and asked AI if it knew anything, and it responded:

The name "Zytilla" is quite unique and doesn't have a widely recognized origin or meaning in common name dictionaries or linguistic sources. It may be a modern creation or a rare name that is specific to a particular family or cultural group.

So there we have it. I can fairly confidently say, Zytilla's mother probably either had 2 other names she morphed together (possibly the Polish Zyta and the German Ottilla), or she made it up and simply liked the way it sounded. It certainly was unique! I wish I knew if Zytilla (also known as Tilla in some records) liked her name? I don't much care for Gertrude, but I do actually really like Zytilla. I wonder about her character. I imagine her as a little blond girl, who looked much like Alice in Wonderland. All I know for certain are these basic facts: she was born in Ohio, died in Illinois, was married, had two children, was a housewife and could read and write. She was a "unicorn", an individual with a unique name and perhaps a unique personality to go with it.

Latin Names in Church Records

 

When I'm working on my ex-husband's family line, I routinely encounter Catholic parish/church records. I took two years of Latin in middle school, but sadly, there's not much left in my aging memory bank. It can be a challenge to figure out if the person in the record is the same person as in my tree. 

To be fair, most of the Latin records I encounter, I don't need to translate word for word. Knowing a record is for a baptism or death, I can usually suss out the dates and locations well enough to enter data in my tree. If I were to stumble across a record I think I might need to translate, I'd more than likely use AI to assist me. Only if I had no other choice, or the record seemed so tantalizing it was worth the effort, would I try to decipher word by word. 

The challenge for me is names in Latin. From Wikipedia, "Latinisation (or Latinization) of names, also known as onomastic Latinisation, is the practice of rendering a non-Latin name in a modern Latin style. It is commonly found with historical proper names, including personal names..." In this branch of the family, I'm often starting with a foreign name and then I'm encountering this foreign name in Latin. It can leave me scratching my head!

A good example is Hermann Franz Berendes (1825-1910). Born in Germany (also shown as Prussia in some records) to parents Wilhelm and Anna Berendes, I have a good inking he probably wouldn't have gone by his original given name once he arrived here in the United States. In an effort to sound more American, he likely would have gone by Herman Frank Berendes or Herman Francis Berendes. As it turns out, he appears to have gone simply by Frank Berendes in most records. His parents are most likely going to be shown as William and Anna, or Anne.

To illustrate the challenge of records in Latin, I'd probably be looking for Franciscus filius (son of) Guglielmus, Gulielmus, Guilhelmus, Gulielmo, or Gulielmum (yup, all those indicate William in Latin) and Anna.  It can get even more confusing when Latinate suffixes have been used to create the genitive tense (used to show relationships) for the person(s) in the record. For instance, Guglielmus would become Guglielmi to signify the father. and Anna becomes Annae for the mother. So now, instead of looking for Frank son of William and Anne, I'm looking for Franciscus filius Guglielmi (or any one of the many other possible forms of William) and Annae. It's not rocket science, but it can take a bit of dilligence.

After struggling repeatedly with these types of records, I found a listing of Latin names on Family Tree Forum. It's certainly not all inclusive, but it is simply organized and searching (using Ctrl+F) within the page works quite well. Rules for the different genitive forms based on father, mother, bride of, etc are included. There are plenty of sites out there to assist with Latin translations, but this list of names is simple and straightforward. Thus far, it's been sufficient to meet my research needs. 

Next time you run into onomastic Latinisation, you'll eiher have a handy reference...or you'll be able to win at Trivial Pursuit (if there's a quesiton about a dead language used to convolute common names beyond all recognition in church records). Either way, I've added a section for Names in my Genealogy Toolbox (and moved a few existing links to this section to make them easier to find). Enjoy!