Truth is stranger than fiction. Yesterday I heard a story I found hard to believe, about a French-Canadian with surname Ethier/Etier whose name was changed to Hickey. How could that be true? Having acquired the Hickey surname myself through marriage, I'd never encountered this factoid. Googling, I found an extraordinary genealogy blog titled "Tom and Kate Hickey Family History" and written by JP Hickey. Hickey, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, has been doing research on his family genealogy and his alma mater for at least six years. 

The Hickey blog is one of several about his extensive research. From his blog postings I've attempted to summarize the story of Louis Etier, JP Hickey's second great-grandfather: Louis Etier was born in 1829, near Montreal, Quebec. His baptismal record showed his surname as Etier although several of his siblings were recorded as Ethier. (Confusion about the correct family surname apparently existed from the get-go!) JP Hickey quoted the PRDH (Research Program in Historical Demography) at the University of Montreal regarding the reason for multiple spellings of family names in Quebec church records, stating "most people were illiterate. Their names come to us via an intermediary and were submitted to the vagaries of pronunciation, regional accents and other factors." The priests who recorded births/marriages/burials attempted to spell names phonetically since the families were unable to spell their surnames. The French pronunciation of the name Etier is Aye-Tee-Aye; Ethier is pronounced Aye-Thee-Aye. PRDH standardized the surname as Ethier in their study and identified 54 variations from 1670 to 1799, including Etie, Hetie, Heque, etc.

At the age of 19 Louis Etier traveled to South Bend, Indiana, where he began working for Notre Dame. Some of his first jobs were felling trees and cutting wood to build roads between South Bend and Notre Dame. Most of his co-workers were English-speakers who could not pronounce or write his French surname.  Many were Irish. Apparently the closest equivalent to what they heard was the Irish name Hickey. In his first employment record at Notre Dame, Louis' surname was reflected as "Hickey." His civil marriage record was spelled "Eaka," which might be pronounced Ay-kay.  (Quebecois named Etier/Ethier who moved to other parts of the U.S. from Quebec had their names changes to Akey, Hakey, Atchey, etc.) After about 1870 Louis' surname was consistently recorded in Notre Dame and church records as Hickey. Louis did not take steps to change his name legally; it just became Hickey by common use.  Louis Etier Hickey's grandson, Thomas Louis Hickey (1886-1966), was a prominent South Bend building contractor and civic and business leader.

JP Hickey's family history research was featured in an article in American Ancestry magazine in May 2013. My sincere thanks to him for sharing the story in his blog. Be prepared to be mesmerized: http://tomandkatehickeyfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.br/. Thanks, too, to Phil Ethier who introduced me to this tale.