What's in a Name?

Today I have the question that Romeo asked Juliet on my mind. And that is because I have stirred up some confusion with the Irish Citizenship folks. Earlier this year I applied for my Irish Citizenship through my Irish-born grandmother who came to New York via Ellis Island in the early 20th century.

If you haven’t applied for citizenship to another country through your ancestry, then perhaps you are not familiar with the mountains of forms that need to be provided. It was daunting but I did not give up. I found all the documents - my grandmother’s birth, marriage, death records, those of my grandfather and my mother’s (her daughter) birth, marriage and death records. Off it all went along with my own long-form birth certificate. Ten months later I received back my Irish Citizenship certificate. Yay!

Well, maybe hold that Yay. My mother (named Ellen V. Kelly at birth) now had her last name spelled incorrectly on the form. I had anticipated this possibility and had alerted the reviewers to the possibility that her last name might look like O’Kelly on her birth certificate, rather than just Kelly, her actual last name. It seems in 1908 there was a clerk in the civil records department in New York City who had the most elaborate penmanship. All of her letters were mini-art pieces and she included a long flourish to begin the letter ‘K’ of my mother’s last name. The flourish created a loop that extended from the K, going right through my mother’s middle initial, creating the illusion of an O.

More documents made their way across the Atlantic so I could request a correction. I supplied again all the documents for my grandmother, grandfather (the Kelly in question) and my parents along with a much longer explanation of the mistake. A week later an email arrived letting me know that my mother’s name is actually O’Kelly and that the office in Ireland had verified it. Verified it with whom, I wondered, since the extended family of said grandmother and grandfather (200 plus and counting) all think they are Kellys not O’Kellys. It was time for me to surrender to the ways of all things Irish.

Now I await news of whether my Irish passport application will be accepted. I wonder if they will puzzle over my birth certificate showing my mother with a last name of Kelly as compared to the Irish Citizenship certificate showing her to be an O’Kelly. I called before I started this next step and asked if that might cause some sort of red flag to be raised. I was told, “no worries, the passport is in the name on your birth certificate.” Hmmm. No worries? I wonder if it will add to the confusion when the review shows my mother’s name on my birth certificate to be Nellie Kelly rather than the Ellen on her own birth certificate.

And, of course, often names were changed when people emigrated to America in the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth but somehow I think I owe this particular bafflement to a clerk working away in most-likely a chilly office in lower Manhattan, creating the most beautiful birth certificates she could for the new United States immigrant-citizens as they brought the next generation of Americans into the world.

I’ve decided this whole mix-up deserves a Limerick, so here goes:

There once was a baby named Kelly
  who grew up to be called Nellie
            A woman of style
         with a dazzling smile
  Her two names did all beguile.

I’m hoping there won’t be more to this story and that shortly I will be in possession of my Irish passport. And, if all goes well, I’ll be off to see some relatives and friends in Europe next year. I’ll have to study up on the family tree and maybe I’ll add myself to a completely new clan of O’Kellys whilst I’m there.

With love and a wink,

Cathleen