re: #587 Sol Berdinowitz
I have the problem that my granddad (or the Ellis Island officials) changed the spelling of our surmname to make it more pronounceable for Americans. But I moved back to Germany and now the Germans have a terrible time pronouncing it correctly, although the original spelling would be no problem.
we’re jewish - i heard from genealogy people that in poland the jewish versions of the same name would be spelled in the germanized fashion - “-owitz” - and the catholic version would be spelled polish fashion - “-owicz”