Saturday, February 19, 2011

A Woman of Many Names:
Della McGary Aston

One of my maternal great-grandmothers was Cancedella McGary, born 20 February 1868 to Arthur McGary and Louisa Perkins. She married Charles Gibson Aston, as noted in a previous blog post.

The spelling of Cancedella's name seemed to be difficult for many people, especially Federal census enumerators.  She appears as:
  • Cancadal in the 1870 census
  • Cancedell in the 1880 census
  • Cancedlea in the 1900 census

Of course other folks have struggled with her name as well:
  • She was recorded as Cancedela in the birth record for her son Clarence, as well as the Marshall County Marriage Register, and that was misread by a transcriber as Canudela on a state-maintained website.
  • The use of ConsalDella was found in a query on the intranet in 1998
  • The person who recorded the birth of daughter Dessie took a different approach and recorded Cancedella's name using initials: C. D.

All of the variations are somewhat similar on a phonetic basis, but the uncommon name seems to have thrown a curve ball when folks actually tried to spell it.

Considering all this, it's easy to see why she was commonly known simply as Della!

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