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Tuesday, February 3, 2015

What's in a Name? Cinderella

Relatives with unusual, strange or unexpected given names--we all have at least a few, lurking somewhere in the tree, not necessarily in our direct line. So I've decided to take a closer look at some of them.

I couldn't resist starting with the given name of two women lodged in my (very) extended family tree: Cinderella!
[The adventures of Cinderella. Published 1810 by Printed and published by G. Martin, 6, Great St. Thomas Apostle, Row-Lane, Cheapside in London. Source: Internet Archive, original from University of California Libraries.]

Cinderella Hart (1814 - 1888) is my son-in-law's third-great grand aunt; she was born in Tennessee and married a man named John W. Bradley. Born fourteen years later in Indiana, Cinderella Bell Skaggs (1828 - 1893) married John Kissinger, my ex-husband's second cousin three-times removed.

[Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

[Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

It's clear that some census enumerators had problems with spelling the name, at least until the latter half of the 19th century as it's variously spelled as Cinderilla, Cinderalla, and Sindrilla.

From Find A Grave contributor Maxine Kelly, we even have pictures of Cinderella Kissinger and the gravestone she shares with her husband.



And yes, it's spelled Cindrilla on the headstone.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

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