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Por alicebb |

Stuart, Are you saying that the actual entry in the church book states Joseph instead of Jose? That is weird, because I thought it only happened in entries that were transcribed (indexed?) by someone who took liberties. And yes, ph is Greek--I just taught Antigone by Sophocles. ABB

--- stuartarms@gmail.com wrote:

From: Stuart Armstrong
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] José Joseph
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:52:59 -0600

In a great many records circa 1775 Rincón de Romos the cura (Pablo
Romo de Vivar) consistently puts Joseph instead of José on marriage
records. He even prefers to George to Jorge, and frequently makes
other similar substitutions, such as Theresa for Teresa or Phelipe for
Felipe. Why is this? Was Joseph an earlier variation or is this just
the priest insisting on Anglicizing the names?

--
Best regards,
Stuart mailto:stuartarms@gmail.com

I find that many priests, even in El Paso, TX in the late 1800s and early 1900s, still insisted on using the Latin for given names, making it very hard for me to figure out what the name was in Spanish that we would know our relatives by. They would use Eulaliam, Liberata, Eduardum, Miriam Carmeli, Abelinum, Elizabethum, Vincentio, Delphinum, Petrum, as well as Josephe and George.

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
----- Original Message -----
From: AliceBB
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] José Joseph

Stuart, Are you saying that the actual entry in the church book states Joseph instead of Jose? That is weird, because I thought it only happened in entries that were transcribed (indexed?) by someone who took liberties. And yes, ph is Greek--I just taught Antigone by Sophocles. ABB

--- stuartarms@gmail.com wrote:

From: Stuart Armstrong >
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] José Joseph
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:52:59 -0600

In a great many records circa 1775 Rincón de Romos the cura (Pablo
Romo de Vivar) consistently puts Joseph instead of José on marriage
records. He even prefers to George to Jorge, and frequently makes
other similar substitutions, such as Theresa for Teresa or Phelipe for
Felipe. Why is this? Was Joseph an earlier variation or is this just
the priest insisting on Anglicizing the names?

--
Best regards,
Stuart mailto:stuartarms@gmail.com

Stuart:

You wrote:

Was Joseph an earlier variation or is this just the priest insisting on Anglicizing the names?

These are not examples of Anglicization, but of the use of the original Greek or Latin form of the names. Before the Bourbon reforms in Spain which made Spanish a phonetically spelled language, there were no standard spellings and the more well educated priests would adhere to the original Latin or Greek spellings of names even if the names were no longer pronounced in that manner...

I would imagine that the "ph" in Joseph had basically become silent over time in Spanish as did many initial and final F sounds, e.g. farina became harina, etc. Tthus with the linguistic reform, the standardized spelling basically dropped the sound, but kept the accentuation on the second syllable which was the remnant of the final consonant.

Italian likewise had the spelling changed to match the pronunciation, where the "ph" was pronounced as a P rather than F so it became Giuseppe.

I've seen marriage records from Laredo, TX from the 1800's actually written in Latin. They write the Spanish names in the margin (Luis Manuel, Lucinda, etc.) and the Latin version in the text (Ludovicum Manuelem, Lucindam, etc.). The full text is in Latin.
I'v seen in genealogy books from Northern Mexico families names such as Joseph or Joanes (Juan), and I wonder if they actually were called by their families or called themselves "Joseph" or "José". Was "Joseph" just for the Church records and "José" the actual name? Or maybe some of them were actually called Joseph and others José? I've also seen José written a Josse in the original records.
Regards,
Victoriano Navarro

Hello AliceBB,

Saturday, March 21, 2009, 1:05:31 PM, you wrote:

> Stuart, Are you saying that the actual entry in the church book
> states Joseph instead of Jose? That is weird, because I thought it
> only happened in entries that were transcribed (indexed?) by someone
> who took liberties. And yes, ph is Greek--I just taught Antigone by Sophocles. ABB

These were the actual films of the original registers. I thought at
first it was the transcriptions I was using, because that transcriber
did take many liberties of just that sort. But then pilot.familysearch
images came on-line and I looked at the original handwriting, and
there was no doubt at all that the original entries had those
spellings. In fact, the spellings are fairly consistent for several
decades of records. Now, I understand that it was just one of the many
"normal" ways of spelling things at that time. I do wonder though, how
"Joseph" was pronounced in 1770 México.

If you want to see these for yourself, try pilot.familysearch.org
Mexico Aguascalientes Catholic Church Records,
Rincón de Romos, San José de Gracia, Matrimonios, 1783-1812

--
Best regards,
Stuart mailto:stuartarms@gmail.com

Stuart,

Joseph was pronounced Josséf, and sometimes written like that but without
the accent. Likewise Josepha was pronounce Josefa. Most of these are
biblical names. There were few rules for spelling in the 17th and 18th
centuries.

Bill Figueroa

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel M�ndez del Camino"
To: "Patty Hoyos"
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 3:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] José Joseph

>
> I would imagine it was pronounced like today's José, i think the ph was
> there just for show. Or maybe Josef
>
>
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