Should a 100-Year Misspelling Continue Because It Is “Historical” ?
Margareth Brennan emigrated from Ireland to the United States about 1861, at the age of 31. Nothing else is known about her early life in Ireland nor her first 10 years in the United States.
On 7 May 1872 in Red Wing, MN, she married a Civil War veteran named James Guilroy. He had served three full years during the war and had been wounded at the battle of Chickamauga.
They began living in Pierce County, but a few years later they moved to Barron County, WI, where they farmed. Married later in life, they did not have any children. James died in Dobie, WI, on 30 Jan 1903 and was buried there in Stanfold Cemetery.
Apparently, she was unable to support herself and she applied to the GAR Veterans Home in King, WI. She entered the Home on 21 Mar 1903.
Margareth died at the Veterans Home on 31 Mar 1915 at the age of 84, and she was buried in the Home Cemetery.
While veterans are furnished a headstone by the government, in 1915, their wives and widows were not eligible for a headstone. Her grave was unmarked until 1926, when an effort was made to provide headstones for these women. It appears that her headstone started out as a government-issued headstone. Over the years, as some veterans’ stones were replaced with (family provided) private headstones, the now-excess stones were accumulated at the cemetery. In 1926, it is known that 97 of these stones were “re-purposed” for wives and widows – the veteran’s inscription was “erased” and replaced with the wife/widow’s inscription. Over 200 headstones were provided to wives and widows during the 1926 campaign.
Note that her stone was inscribed “Margaret Gilroy” – both names are misspelled. Of the 200+ headstones provided to wives/widows in 1926, at least 30 of them had errors in the inscribed name.
This spring (Apr 2019), I noticed that her stone was broken completely through and was lying flat on the ground. Because her stone is both at the end of a row and very close to a cemetery driveway, I first suspected that it was the victim of a snowplow (snow was piled over her headstone during the winter months). Close inspection showed that the stone had an old “fissure”, which had finally severed the stone near ground level.
I wrote to cemetery management about the condition of this headstone and strongly suggested that they replace the headstone. Additionally, I pointed out that both of her names had been misspelled – and this was a once-in-100-years opportunity to correct the spelling. I provided the correct spelling of her names, her birth and death information, and her military affiliation (wife of James Guilroy, Co F, 1st WI INF).
The recently-hired cemetery director responded to my letter by stating that “under guidance from the National Cemetery Administration (NCA)”, the headstone would be replaced. He correctly pointed out that documents filed at the GAR Veterans Home had recorded her name as “Margaret Gilroy”. He requested additional “documentation” to support my contention that her name was misspelled.
He stated that the NCA would require “sufficient documentation” to justify a name change. This is confusing to me, because the NCA did not provide her first headstone, so this would not be a “name change” as far as the NCA is concerned – this would be a first request for a headstone.
I provided the following analysis in support of changing the spelling to “Margareth Guilroy”.
Guilroy vs Gilroy:
There are 8 documents showing a spelling of “GILROY” and 7 documents showing a spelling of “GUILROY”:
- 1870 Census: Gilroy
- 1880 Census: Gilroy
- 1885 Wisconsin Census: Guilroy
- 1885 Enumeration of Soldiers & Sailors: Guilroy
- 1886 Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers: Guilroy
- 1890 Veterans Census: Guilroy
- 1895 Wisconsin Census: Gilroy
- 1895 Enumeration of Soldiers & Sailors: Gilroy
- 1896 Civil War Pension Index: Guilroy
- 1900 Census: Guilroy
- 1905 Wisconsin Census: Gilroy
- 1910 Census: Gilroy
- 1903 James Guilroy Death Record: Guilroy
- 1903 Margareth’s GAR Home Application: Gilroy
- 1915 Margareth’s Death Record: Gilroy
Discussion:
GUILROY is an extremely rare variation of the more common spelling of GILROY. How rare? A search of United States censuses from 1840-1940 shows:
- Number of people with the GILROY spelling: 20,713
- Number of people with the GUILROY spelling: 31
- Number of people born in Ireland with the GILROY spelling: 3,182
- Number of people born in Ireland with the GUILROY spelling: 2 (James & Margareth)
It would be incredulous to assume that a census taker would arbitrarily use “GUILROY” or interchange the two spellings, because the GUILROY spelling is so rare. It would be similar to a census taker arbitrarily recording “SMYTH” instead of “SMITH”.
It would be a safe presumption to say that if the GUILROY variation was recorded multiple times, then James must have been providing that spelling to the census taker or record maker.
Margareth vs Margaret:
Only 7 (readily-available) documents recorded her first name:
- 1880 Census: Margareth
- 1896 Civil War Pension Index: Margareth
- 1900 Census: Margareth
- 1903 Margareth’s GAR Home Application: Margaret
- 1905 Wisconsin Census: Margaret
- 1910 Census: Margaret
- 1915 Margareth’s Death Record: Margaret
It is immediately apparent that her name was recorded as “Margareth” until 1903 and then recorded as “Margaret” thereafter. The first recorded spelling of “Margaret” was her application to the GAR Home, which was written out by a Barron County clerk, because Margareth herself could not read nor write.
All subsequent documents (after her application in 1903), used the spellings on the 1903 application. That is, the 1905 and 1910 Census was completed using GAR Home records; individual members of the Home were not interviewed by the Census taker. Also, the source of the information on her death record was “Vets Home Records”. If her name(s) had been recorded correctly on her application, then every document would have shown “Margereth”.
Two other factors should be noted:
- When her GAR Application was completed for her in 1903, Margareth was 73 years old, (by her own account) she was suffering from the “infirmities” of age, had just been widowed, and must have been very anxious because she had no means of support. In other words, the correct spelling of her name (if she knew it) was unlikely to be important to her.
- James could likely read and write. It was only after his death that her name was recorded as “Margaret”.
Discussion:
MARGARETH is an uncommon variation of MARGARET. (“Margarethe” or “Margarete” – with the final “E” – are variations which that more common in German or Scandinavian populations.)
How uncommon? A search of United States censuses from 1840-1940 shows:
- Number of people with the MARGARET spelling: 7.4 Million
- Number of people with the MARGARETH spelling: 52,546
- Number of people born in Ireland with the MARGARET spelling: 556,701
- Number of people born in Ireland with the MARGARETH spelling: 4,430
For the same reason that a census taker would not arbitrarily record “Gilroy” as “Guilroy”; it would be incredulous to believe that a census taker would arbitrarily record “Margaret” as “Margareth”.
Conclusion:
In my experience, the gold standard for the spelling of a Civil War veteran’s name – or that of his spouse – is their application for a Civil War pension.
In this case, James applied for a pension in 1896 and Margareth applied for a widow’s pension in 1903. James would have been required to document all of his marriages, spouses, and children; and the same for Margareth. The Bureau of Pensions compared the two applications with a veritable microscope. The applicants’ names are recorded on a publicly accessible “Civil War Pension Index” card. Here are the entries on their card:
Soldier: GUILROY, James
Widow: GUILROY, Margareth
I strongly believe the variations in the spelling of the subject’s first and last name were not arbitrary, accidental, or the result of a record maker defaulting to a common spelling. This supposition is based on the overall record and basic statistical analysis of the commonality of these names.
I recommended to the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs that her replacement headstone be inscribed:
MARGARETH GUILROY
We’ll have to wait and see if my recommendation was accepted – to date, the headstone has not been replaced.