For this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, “Begins With A Vowel”, I decided to be more graphical. So I created a word cloud for all the surnames of my direct ancestors whose surnames begin with a vowel.
I have 14 direct ancestors whose surname begins with “A”, three whose begin with “E” (my Eglin and Elgin ancestors are not related, other than through me!), one each for “I” and “O”, and none for “U”, “Y”, and “IJ”.
“What? ‘IJ’??” you say?
In the Dutch language, IJ is treated as a letter unto itself. In fact, in my reading it appears that there is some debate on the matter in the Netherlands, although in Flanders (a Dutch-speaking province in Belgium), it’s considered two letters. Technically speaking, “ij” is a digraph of the letters “i” and “j”, forming a single phoneme (distinct sound). It doesn’t have an exact sound counterpart in English, although it can sound somewhat like a long “i”. When a word that begins with the diagraph is capitalized, both the “i” and “j” are capitalized. The “ij” in Dutch words are often changed to a “y” when adapted into English. In modern Dutch, words with the letter “y” are most often ones that were borrowed from other languages.
For example, a Dutch surname that begins with “IJ” is “IJzerman”, which means “iron man” or “man of iron” in English. You will sometimes see this name changed to “Yzerman” in English. Ice hockey fans will be familiar with Steve Yzerman, whose grandfather immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands at the beginning of the 20th century. Given his success in the sport, “man of iron” is a fitting moniker.
A Deck of Ancestors 