Immigration Research Tip

Some people viewed immigration as a new beginning and did not want to carry old memories and sometimes negative histories into the new country of immigration. So they changed their surname slightly and in some cases completely. Also, in countries where different naming conventions are used, like the patronymic convention, the immigrant may have chosen to use the locality of origin as their name of preference. For instance, Andreas Andreasen who came from Hammersborg, Norway is listed in the 1860 US Census as Andreas Andreasen but in later Censuses Hammersborg was listed as his last name. After a few more years it was converted to Hammersberg.