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Re: names
That's because Branden comes from a variety of places most of which take their name from the English elements of brom 'broom' and dun 'hill'. Branden and Bradon thus occur but only rarely does the sound of -dun inspire the use of an a for the u. Many people would also find the double A's a bit 'much', preferring the balance of Brandon or Branden just as they prefer the visuals of Brennan to Brennen.You can write to Mike and ask him to add your spelling as a variant however and then maybe you would get to see your exact name here.Devon
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You think you got problems. Try having a last name of BRENDA! What the heck kind of last name is THAT? You try and do a surname search on a data base and find the entry operators are so slack that you get hundreds of women with given names of brenda and very few surnames brenda? Who am I? I dont say it is an old english surname cause it aint!!! And an Ellis island search results in 22 immigrants from all over europe, france, spain, hungery, russia, GO FIGURE!!! Any ideas???
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Well, I personally don't have problems because I have most branches of my family back to the early 1600's now LOL BUTTry dedicated searching for "surname Brenda" - the quotes will knock your results from 69,000 to under 200. And you might want to take a look athttp://www.genealogytoday.com/surname/finder.mv?Surname=Brendawhere you can hook up with some cousins hopefully.I wouldn't suppose your surname was English at all - Brendan is from the Irish Gaelic Bréanainn, modern form Breandán, Anglicised as Brendan. What's probably more important for you in your research is the fact that church records were kept in Latin and the Latin form was Brendanus. As you go through Irish genealogy you'll find someone baptised as Brendanus but called Breandán or Bréanainn. Add in a heavy brogue, fatigue and confusion at entry ports in the US and you could have a recipe for surname Brenda.Good luck!Devon
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