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About personal names

What’s in a name?  Names are not always what they seem, particularly in Indigenous family history research. When tracing your family history it is worth bearing the following in mind: 

Indigenous people were often identified in older records by a given and/or traditional name only. When Aboriginal people did take European names, their origins commonly include -

• European translations of traditional names
• the name of the property they worked on
• the name of the property owner or employer 

You may find unexpected variations in the spellings of names. Until very late in the 19th century, there were very few people who could read and write well, meaning that a person may not know that their name was being spelt incorrectly.  Names were often spelt as they had sounded, leaving plenty of scope for errors. Some examples are listed below.

The name that you know someone by may not be the name listed on official documentation. Quite often people used alternative names that were different to their birth name. here are just a few examples: