Mathews Family Name

When I was growing up, I remember constantly asking my grandmother to tell me stories about who my ancestors were and where I came from. For some reason, I was fascinated by it and to this day, I still am. It saddens me that I don't have tons of information about my family tree but it doesn't stop me from trying. However, it has to be done one step at a time and there is no guarantee that any of the information that I find actually pertains to me; my name is far too common but that doesn't make me any less proud to have it.



Now if you are one of my relatives that is reading this blog, hold your horses: I know that this crest does not spell our name the way that we do. But, in all actuality, it kind of does. See, when I asked my grandmother about our name, she said that we used to spell our last name Matthews but that it was changed less than 100 years ago, which in the grand scheme of time, isn't very long. Apparently, one day my great-grandfather got into a massive fight or some type of feud with his brother and wanted to be "separated" from him permanently. Hence, the slight name change: from Matthews to Mathews. Simple, yet effective.

Matthews seems to be the more common spelling of it, as I had to constantly correct people because they spelled my name wrong my whole life. It used to really bother me but now that I'm older, I realize that it isn't such a big deal. However, to me, the idea that I might never truly know where I came from is a big deal.

I can infer that Mathews is a British name, however, back in the early 1600s, they didn't have things like dictionaries or methods to record the spellings of names. Spelling just wasn't of importance. They basically wrote things however the words sounded to them, so your family members could potentially spell the last name that you share together, differently. Sometimes the name Matthews, could be spelled like Mathews, Matthewes and in some cases, Matthewson. So even though I would like to believe that my family sailed from England to the New World to escape religious persecution, the name can also be traced back to Scotland, which makes the journey a bit more complicated.

So it looks like if I'm going to continue to try to research my family tree, that it is going to require a lot more research and patience. However, until this morning, I didn't know half of what I posted in this blog. I relied on family stories and word of mouth. So it is refreshing to feel as through I have made some progress in finding out who I am and where my family came from. I just hope that once I learn everything that I can, that I can live up to my name. :)

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