Helen Hunt's Family Tree... maybe

For any budding family historians out there; I watched "Who Do You Think You Are" the other night. It was about Helen Hunt's family. At one point, they showed her grandmother's death certificate, which included very useful information; her grandmother's father's name... William Scholle.
The man helping her do research then showed her a copy of a ship's manifest from 1842. He pointed to the name Wolf Schaly. They ran with that name from there, never showing how they made that leap from one name to another. It looked as if they simply assumed Wolf Schaly had Anglicized his Austrian name to William Scholle... and left it at that. I was really surprised. I imagine there were genealogists across America who sat up on the edge of their seats and said "WHAT? HOW DID THEY DO THAT?"

If you want to be correct as possible, you don't assume anything. You have to show how the name change happened. It has to be verified, and it sure didn't look like they did it there.


I have a great aunt who is only known from census records as "S.E. Scott." One of my distant relatives, who also does family research, once asked me why I didn't just say her name was Sarah Elizabeth. I asked her if she knew something I didn't. She replied that Sarah and Elizabeth were very common names in the 1800's... and so what else could her name be? I said, " How about, Susan, Samantha, Savannah, Sabrina, Sadie, Sharon, or Sofia... or Ellen, Efie, Eileen, Edwina, or Eunice?" Her reply was... "well it was probably Sarah Elizabeth." Maybe it was, or maybe it wasn't. If you don't verify it somehow, you're just guessing.

I lost interest after they jumped that name, and didn't finish watching... it was an entertaining fairy tale after that.