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Spelling can be misleading...
Several years ago I sent out an S.O.S. on a message board to find information on an ancestor. A man who's first name was spelled Frances. A member of the board who happened to be an English teacher replied to me with a lecture about how I was spelling the man's name wrong. Frances with an "e" is the feminine. Francis with an "i" is the masculine. She told me I needed to change the spelling because I was spelling his name wrong.
What the English teacher did not understand was that back in the 1800s, not everyone understood the differences between feminine and masculine in English. This group of ancestors in particular were poor farmers. None of them were educated and spent their entire lives on their farms. I replied to the English teacher explaining to her that in our research of genealogy records keeping this point in mind is important. If we see a male ancestor with a name spelled in the feminine in records, we cannot take it upon ourselves to change the spelling of his name or assume the individual is not our ancestor. This would be changing history and our genealogy would no longer be authentic, nor credible.
When searching through census records, birth records, death records, etc., keep in mind that your ancestors may have spelled their names differently throughout their life. I have found this to be the case with several ancestors, and with a few living relatives too. I have a living relative who came across his birth certificate to find that his parents had taught him to spell his name differently from what they had put on his birth certificate. My own mother thought she spelled her middle name Ann, so on my daughter's birth certificate her middle name is spelled "Ann." My mom came across her birth certificate last year to find her middle name is in fact spelled "Anne."
It's important to keep the different spelling of names in mind when conducting research and making notes on the different spellings you find throughout your reports. I couldn't find my grandfather in the 1920 census until I changed the spelling of his surname. After a few different spellings I came across him with his family right where I thought they were in Idaho. As far as I know my grandfather knew how to spell his last name, but sometimes the individuals who create the records do not know how to spell the surnames and do not ask for a correct spelling or maybe the ancestor gave the wrong spelling to the creator of the record. Census records are known to have these types of spelling errors due to the census takers and whoever answered the census taker. We don't know who was at home that day giving the information to the census taker.
If you keep in mind that the spelling of names can be different and you know how to properly examine individual records, you will have a lower risk of being misled.
What the English teacher did not understand was that back in the 1800s, not everyone understood the differences between feminine and masculine in English. This group of ancestors in particular were poor farmers. None of them were educated and spent their entire lives on their farms. I replied to the English teacher explaining to her that in our research of genealogy records keeping this point in mind is important. If we see a male ancestor with a name spelled in the feminine in records, we cannot take it upon ourselves to change the spelling of his name or assume the individual is not our ancestor. This would be changing history and our genealogy would no longer be authentic, nor credible.
When searching through census records, birth records, death records, etc., keep in mind that your ancestors may have spelled their names differently throughout their life. I have found this to be the case with several ancestors, and with a few living relatives too. I have a living relative who came across his birth certificate to find that his parents had taught him to spell his name differently from what they had put on his birth certificate. My own mother thought she spelled her middle name Ann, so on my daughter's birth certificate her middle name is spelled "Ann." My mom came across her birth certificate last year to find her middle name is in fact spelled "Anne."
It's important to keep the different spelling of names in mind when conducting research and making notes on the different spellings you find throughout your reports. I couldn't find my grandfather in the 1920 census until I changed the spelling of his surname. After a few different spellings I came across him with his family right where I thought they were in Idaho. As far as I know my grandfather knew how to spell his last name, but sometimes the individuals who create the records do not know how to spell the surnames and do not ask for a correct spelling or maybe the ancestor gave the wrong spelling to the creator of the record. Census records are known to have these types of spelling errors due to the census takers and whoever answered the census taker. We don't know who was at home that day giving the information to the census taker.
If you keep in mind that the spelling of names can be different and you know how to properly examine individual records, you will have a lower risk of being misled.
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Comment
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Comment by Walter J. Freeman on July 14, 2009 at 10:11am
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I can give you 11 ways to spell Freeman and some of them don't even begin with an "F", e.g. "Thurman" (same family nonetheless).
I have laughed a time or two when researching old deed records to find the same surname spelled differently several times in the same document! Since most county clerks were paid to write the deeds (often paid by the word, which helps to explain the ramble found in some deed and other records), and since they were not always completed in the same sitting, one can just see a clerk coming back to a work-in-progress and just continuing where he left off without a good review of what he had already written. After all, he was more concerned with specifying property boundaries and the like than in how he spelled the names of the seller and the buyer, who mayhaps could not read as evidenced by their "marks" on the bottom. If the deed was long (i.e., expensive) then it must be good. Right?
I think that we are on the brink of a revolution in spelling accuracy. The current rules in which some take such pride, usually in an uniformed way thinking that what they know is the way it has always been, are being altered in the younger generation even as we speak.
Has anyone communicated with a teenager by email lately? One sees the texting habit of extreme abbreviation creeping steadily into their every day prose. Or at least I do.
So the next, or possibly the next beyond that, generation of genealogists will likely not have a problem with funny spellings of anything.
no wht I meen?
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Comment by Cindy Johnston Sorley on July 10, 2009 at 7:52pm
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Jennifer, excellent article... I have been searching Willoughby's in Kentucky and have found Willoby, Wiloby, Willobee, Willouby, Wilabee and others in my search. I have a little yellow tablet with all the possibilities of a name spelling and search all of them.
I recently found my Esteps under Esteppe and Eastep.
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Comment by Richard Aurand Sherer on July 10, 2009 at 5:50pm
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I've said this so often I'm tired of hearing myself, but the fact is that the spelling of names wasn't considered important until after 1878, when the first telephone directory was published in New Haven, CT.
We also have to remember than many of our names were transliterated from other languages. My immigrant ancestor was Hans Schärer, but the Anglo-Saxon record-keepers in 18th century Pennsylvania transcribed it as John Shearer. Jost became Yost, Bingemann became Bingaman, Aurandt became Aurand, etc.
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Comment by Kelly Zehr on July 10, 2009 at 3:15pm
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I have also had that problem with my grandmother's family, Kelly. It seems half the records show it as KELLY and the other half as KELLEY. My grandmother spelled it without the second 'e' so that is what the family claims is correct, but we have lots of things where it was spelled wrong by others, such as teachers.
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Comment by Lawrence Pickard SMC(SW) Ret on July 10, 2009 at 2:46pm
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Family members can cause mistakes too, my grandmother's family alternately speeled their name Boettcher and Boetcher. As Richard said especially in the Census names were spelled however the enumerator thought they were spelled. My granfathers last name was Nix, but I have found him and his family listed as Nixe and Nicks.
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I agree 100% with what you are saying. I just wanted to add that spelling was not considered an important issue, even in official circles. My great great grandfather's name appeared in the 1850 census as Christian Sharer. When he died 3 years later, his name IN THE PROBATE RECORD was spelled Shearer, Sherer and Sheerer. Researchers who don't look for alternative spellings are likely to miss a lot of relatives.
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