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Olie Olafsson was walking down the street in "Little Norway" Wisconsin when he was brought up short by the sign "Sven Olafsson's Chinese Laundry". Olie knew there were not too may Olafssons in the USA so he went into the cleaners to see if they might be cousins or something. He asked the obviously Chinese man behind the counter if he could get Sven out front to chat for a bit.

The chinaman said, "I' Sven Olafsson. Whatie you needie?"

Olie couldn't believe his ears. He asked, "How in the world could you, a chinaman, be Sven Olafsson?"

Sven answered, "I comie to Ellis Island. In frontie me, BIG TALL yellow haired man tell clerk at desk, his namie, 'Sven Olafsson' and spellout all name. When my turn come to tellie name, I say 'Sem Teng'. Clerk write down 'Sven Olafsson'." [Place 'rimshot' here.]

Not a joke to those whose who were given names convient to the immigrant officers art the time.

There is the famous case of the Jewish man named Ike Ferguson. When asked his name on Ellis Island, he clean forgot and said:"Ich forgessen."
"Ah" said the inquisitor, "Ike Ferguson".

Hugs,

Lydia

Same kind of thing happened when the members of the Five Civilized tribes were to be removed to Oklahoma. Often the poorly educated people making the rolls would be unable to cope with a native name, so would put down something close in English, and often if no surname was given, then they would use a title. Among the Cherokees, captains of warriors were denoted and ranked by the number of people they had killed in battle, thus the families of Sixkillers, Tenkillers, etc. Others, like among the Creeks and Choctaws, would adopt the surname of some man they admired, thus we have unrelated families of Bingham (for missionary Cyrus Bingham), and McIntosh for a trader of scotch descent among the Creeks. Makes it hard to trace a geneology, as I learned when checking out my family.

Sorry, not funny, just historical trivia.

Carolynn