Meet the Gallikers

It's been a while since I have added much to our genealogy, although a recent trip to Salt Lake City, UT has helped reignite some of that old history bug in me. I've been asked if our name came from Peterson....this is what I found. According to Ancestry.com our last name was actually Galliker. (well back to at least 1486) Our 13th great grandfather was Hans Galliker alias Peter 1486-1557. I did a little research on the alias part! There were 5 reasons men used an alias even up through the late 1600's. Often they did not want to lose there given or birth name. Of coarse there was illegitimacy, children born out of wedlock took their mothers surname. If the father was taking care of the child's needs or often if the fathers family was in the child's life, the child could alias his fathers name. Commemoration by descendants of a marriage to a heiress, or to a member of a "socially superior" family. Rights of inheritance, and other economic reasons. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Use_of_Aliases_-_an_Overview

Also those that were taken in, or purchased when young would often use their owners name and alias there given name. We do the same thing in today's society when we hyphenate our maiden and married names. It can be very frustrating to those doing the research! It only makes sense that Galliker could have been an alias our 13th great grandfather used and our given names was something different, although I can only go back as far as Ancestry will take me and I think 1486 is pretty far back there!

ALIAS= (Latin for another time or otherwise)