At 02:06 PM 1/21/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I have a questions that I am hoping someone can give me an answer to.
>
>All my life, I was told my maiden name "GREENE" was always spelled with the "e" on the end.
>
>Does anybody out there know what the significance is.  Are there two main lines, GREEN AND GREENE?
>
>Some papers I have on my g-grandfather have his name spelled John Green.
>
>Also I was told my Greene line came from Ireland, yet just about everything I see pertains to England.
>
>If anybody can enlighten me on this name spelling, and the London, Ireland origin, I would really appreciate it.  All my immediate Greene ancestor's are no longer with us, so there is no one I can ask.
>
>The post from alia@cyberport.net, Early Green Emigrant List, was what what prompted me to write this.  Thanks for any help anyone may have on  my questions.  Sally G. Trim
>
==================================================

             " TO E OR NOT TO E"

Hi Sally......I would love to tackle your question!  The presence or absence of the E at the end of Greene is pretty much irrelevant, and you might want to always check our surname under both spellings.  Often the E was dropped or added by people maintaining records (such as census takers)
and often the E was dropped or added at whim by people within the very same family.  In fact, my own father unknowingly walked past the gravesite of his own great grandfather Allen Green , 1812-1900, in NY because there was no E on the headstone - his gr. grandfather apparently did not use the E, but we know his son Burnett Greene, 1861-1933 ( my father's grandfather) did use the E in everything.  It was a year later before we discovered his error.  There are many other Green/e families where this discrepancy also appears.  One of my distant cousins was told by her family that our Greenes originally had no E  until the 1930s when it was added.  Yet I have a family diary from   1880 clearly showing the E.  Go figure!  (This diary has some amusing entries, such as "Today, hoed potatoes, got married".  End of entry. I guess romanticism as we know it was not quite the same in those years!)

In particular, the Green/es from Rhode Island, of which there are three apparently separate branches dating back from the 1600s, cannot be "assigned to families"  based on the presence or absence of the E.  (I cannot comment on the Green/es of Ireland's use of the E - however, I do know that some of the Greenes who were thought to have come from Ireland actually originated in  England and had some branches go on to Ireland, then on to the Colonies. ) I would be interested to hear from descendants of the Greenes of Virginia (1600s) if the variation of the name also appears in this line as well.

I learned the hard way to ALWAYS check both spellings.  There are NOT two main lines - Green and Greene.
Laura
 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
Laura Greene
lgg@interaccess.com
or  redhed44@aol.com
Carlsbad, California
===================================================
Researching: Green(e)  (RI>NY), Daves (NC>Illinois), DuBois (NY) Fay  (Mass>NY), Riley  (NY), Johnson  (RI) Hardenbergh  (NY), Holden (RI>Mass >NY),  Mitchell (?>TX & KS)
 Putman  (NY),  Wands (NY),
===================================================
FTM Homepage: http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/g/r/e/Laura-G-Greene/
Noel's Greene Database:      http://al7fl.abts.net/green-page/green.htm
Noel's Putman/Putnam Database: http://al7fl.abts.net/putman/putman.htm
 ===================================================