Name misspellings in records obscured but did not destroy descendant links

Evidence

It was clear that getting their names right was not important to the record keepers. There was no interest in accurately documenting Black lives. But I also knew that she was named after her grandmother, who was the Tena I saw in Thomas Taylor’s 1834 will. As I combed through documents that Chris sent me, trying to decipher the tiny script handwriting, I saw all my family names repeating: Renty, George, Sarah, and “Fed”—not even Fred, but Fed! That really stood out, since that was the same name my grandfather went by. Several years before my mom died, she told me his given name was Frederick Douglass Thompson. All I had ever known was he was Fed Thompson. Seeing a Fed listed in both Benjamin Franklin Taylor’s will, and in Thomas Taylor’s will, was all the proof I needed. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 379

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: the genealogy of a name — how “Fed” (for Frederick Douglass) persisted across generations even as record-keepers mangled it.