Name Variations in the Family of Leslie

Welcome to this week’s blog on the Leslie name as found in our research.

By searching through records on the family of Leslie many variations of spelling can be found. The most common spelling is “Leslie”, however variations in Scotland and Ireland records can be found, with the most common being Lesslie and Lesley. In old records, the name is prefixed with a “de” such as in Andrew de Leslie, meaning Andrew of Leslie from the French.

Other recorded variants of the surname include Lesly, Leslee, Lesle, Lessley, Lessly, and de Lesslyn, among others. This list is illustrative rather than exhaustive, as numerous additional spelling variations appear in historical records. So, when genealogists search for Leslie records, they commonly use wildcard search terms such as “Lesl*”, when the * may stand for any of the variant ending spellings.

The question arises: Why are there variations in spellings? In some cases, many Scottish families wished to distinguish themselves from other branches of the family. This was done by altering the spelling of the surname, so in this case Leslie may have become Lesly. Also, names were recorded in many cases by a person verbally giving their surname and then it is recorded as it is heard by the person doing the recording. This may explain how Leslie was recorded as “Lasly” or a variation of that spelling. The variation Lasley can be found in many genealogical databases. Many Leslies in the main family branches were literate and could write, so the name Leslie became somewhat uniform in the written records for these branches.

European Leslies
Leslies traveled and settled across many European countries from Scandinavia to France. For each of these locations the Leslie name may have been altered to conform to pronunciation and other naming conventions. This is likely how descendants of Walter Leslie who went to Demark in 1551 later carried the name Leschly and Lesler. We recognize the important work of Camilla  Luis Dahl, an archivist, in her researching and publication of a book on the Walter Leslie line in Denmark, which can be found in the documents section of the LeslieGDF.org website.

Lashley Surname
An important question in surname research is whether Lashley represents a historical variant of the surname Leslie, or if the two families are connected in some manner. In the records search for Leslie genealogy, Lashley does not occur. The surname Lashley does not appear in the index of Scottish surnames, instead that name is commonly classified as English in surname indices, though the specific family’s deeper geographic origin remains an open research question. One line of research could include examining the surname as it occurs in the Caribbean islands. Records show that there were several persons with the surname Lashley in Barbados, a location that was heavily populated by Scots.

When examining Leslie DNA postings on the Family Tree DNA site, there are Lasly/Lassley DNA submissions who report their oldest known ancestor as Leslie. Mr. James Lashley has conducted extensive research on the Lashley family, and the Foundation will follow up on his finding that:

“ … a kit under the surname Lashley lists its ancestor as “James Lessels/Leslie, b. 1740,” United Kingdom (haplogroup R-FT04400, unmatched to a numbered lineage). That’s a documented Lashley-to-Leslie connection by name in the project’s own data.”

At this time, we are not sure if Lashley is part of the family of Leslie or affiliated in some way, yet to be discovered. Mr. Lashley’s research will be updated and posted in the documents section of the LeslieGDF.org website. It is quite encouraging to the Foundation, that there are researchers like Camilla and James, with deep interest in these genealogical questions.