In getting to know extended family members, it seems that one question is intriguing to all of us--- Why did some of our ancestors change their name and others did not?
Most of us these days go by either
Le Capitaine or
LeCaptain. Some go by simply
Captain. And there were a few along the line who went by
Le Captaine (no first I.)
The original Belgian spelling of the family name was indeed
Le Capitaine. When
Jean Baptiste and his four sons traveled to the USA from Belgium, that was their name. One son,
Joseph, kept the original spelling and so did all of Joseph's descendants. But most of the members of the other three brothers' branches changed their names in some way. How come?
Our family did not go through Ellis Island and get asked to change their name. Our family came to the U.S. in 1856 and Ellis Island didn't open until 1892. (And actually that whole idea of Ellis Island workers changing ethnic last names is a myth, anyway. See:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-did-ellis-island-officials-really-change-names-immigrants-180961544/)
Did our families change their names to try to
sound more "American?" Were they hoping to adopt a less ethnic/less Belgian/less French persona? Did they eventually just get annoyed with having to spell out their last name all the time? (I hear ya on that one, fellas!)
Personally, I think it was a less formal or structured decision than we might assume. Records and IDs were not checked by a computer and rejected if there was a missing E or a missing space, as they are now. Towns were smaller, people knew their neighbors, knew the business owners. If a man or a family decided to simplify their name, it was probably really easy to do so. One could just start filling out forms with that name. Start telling that name to the census-taker, giving that name to the newspaper reporter, fill out their draft registration with that spelling, etc.
One newly-found-long-lost cousin told me that her father was not given a choice in changing his name. That a person of authority-- a teacher, or pastor, etc-- told him that his name
Le Capitaine meant "the captain," and therefore he would be called
Captain. He didn't argue, and so he lived his 99 years on Earth as Mr. Captain.
The family of
Constant Jean Baptiste is a good example, of how these name changes don't seem very consistent, leading me to imagine it might have just been a matter of personal preference.
Constant was one of the four brothers who immigrated. He had five sons who lived to adulthood. Of these five sons, four went by
Captain, and the fifth son, the youngest, kept
Le Capitaine.
In the 1880 census, the family was
Le Capitaine.
In the 1901 city directory, Constant and his children were all listed as
Captain.
In the 1915 city directory, Constant and his children were listed as
Capitaine and
Capitain.
When Constant's wife passed away, her newspaper obituary said
Mrs. Constant Le Captaine.
When Constant himself passed away, his newspaper obituary said Constant
Captain, and his headstone said
Le Captaine.
No matter the spelling, all of us Le Capitaines, LeCaptains, and Captains are related. We might be 4th or 5th cousins, but we all can trace our lines back to the family who traveled on a ship from Belgium to Wisconsin in 1856.
