Does anyone know what legal procedure you had to go through in the 1860's to change your surname?

Question

Where would I find such documentation?

Answer 1

There was no procedure. You just did it. Our system of recognizing people solely by name didn't become systemized until the early 20th century. That's how so many immigrants were able to "Americanize" their names without any hassles. You came into town, changed your name without anyone knowing it was every anything else, and introduced yourself. That's how "Adolf Kowalski" from Lodz became "Don Smith" from Milwaukee.

In Europe people "carried papers" and that included identification cards. In America there were no requirements that you have anything to identify yourself. If you walked up to the postmaster in Keokuk Iowa and said you were "Tom Horner", you'd get mail for Tom Horner. Literally the only time that the government cared what your name was (and only a little) was during the census and when you petitioned for Naturalization.

That only changed after Ellis Island opened with the Immigration reforms of 1891/93 and then the second set of reforms passed in 1905 and put in place for 1906. The first set actually documented passengers coming into the country with more than just the ship's manifest. They actually gave people "papers" and asked them to keep them. The second set of reforms actually made you produce those papers and provide significant background information before declaring your intent to become naturalized. Realize that it took our country 75 years to get to that point. Furthermore, before 1830 we didn't even keep track of who came in and out of the country. Our borders were wide open.

There were times when illiterate or semi-literate immigrants continued using their papers issued in their homeland for a little bit of time after arriving in the US. One notable case was "Magdalina Neryk" who came from Prussia in 1879 had a spelling error on her visa that was issued in Bremen. She was only 18 and never went to school in her life. She didn't know that the correct spelling of her name was "Magdalena Nehring". So she took her visa across the ocean and met her fiance, John Suminski, in Detroit when she arrived. He took her north to a little town in central Michigan where no one had a clue what her birth name was supposed to be. She didn't speak a word of English so when they went to apply for their marriage license she handed them "her papers" and they tried their best to read the heavy German handwriting. The clerk at Bay County Michigan read it as "Magdalena Nergk". It was her Polish parish priest who taught her what her name was supposed to look like and showed her how to write it correctly. It was only with the births of her children that we find the original spelling of the name back in play. She also brought over a 9 year old brother and he used multiple variant spellings of that name throughout his life (tracking him was a joy believe me!) His family's folklore is that one of the name changes was actually perpetrated by a mail carrier who was confusing 3 completely different family's with homonymic names so he "assigned" each a spelling" to keep them straight. I was dubious of this until I researched in more depth and found members of those other families who had a similar tale in their families. That does lend it some credibility. But there is no record of this happening. Whatever happened took place between the three Nehring/Neering families of Michigan and an unnamed postman.

Answer 2

It has been enshrined in case law since the 1700's that anyone can call themselves by any name they wish (as long as it is not for financial gain). People frequently adopt other names and this is quite legal, so you will not necessarily find any legal documents.

Answer 3

adoptions and name changes were informal. so if children were adopted they got that family name, widows went back to maiden names, if names were hard to spell they adapted them to make names easier to write, so there was no legal procedure at that time so there will be no documents

Answer 4

I thought that was'nt possible until the age of d-poll and that did'nt happen until1920.