In a message dated 13/03/2008 7:09:03 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
oldenburg-l-request@genealogy.net writes:
I found the following entry in a church book:
Parentes Herman Heggeman dictus Vosk?hler Elisabeth Vosk?hler
Parents: Herman Heggeman known as Vosk?hler and Elizabeth Vosk?hler
The marriage record does not contain the word 'dictus'. It appears in two
of the baptism records, but not all of them. The same priest wrote all
entries. I saw similar entries in the book for other Fathers.
"Dictus" is Latin for "called" or "said to be." By the time of the baptism
the father had become known by the wife's last name because she was the heir
to the property they lived on. Sometimes it took more than one generation to
make the name stick to all the family, so for a while both names may be found
for the children's last names, but not consistently.
The wife may be heir because she was the oldest daughter and there
weren't any surviving sons, or because she married the heir to the property. (It
may not be her maiden name.)
Also a man may be "dictus" something other than his father's name simply
because he acquired an estate with a different name, by other means than
marriage.
In the above case the woman carried the estate name.
Nancy Pundsack