Genealogy Chat

While searching for my grandmother in 1891 I have come across the following: Her name was Florence Lawson and her mother was unmarried. However because the head of the household is John Betts and the relationship between Florence and John is written as 'Daughter', her name comes up as Florence Betts in the initial search. It is only when you look at the actual scan that you see her name is written as Florence Lawson. If I hadn't had some idea of who her father was I would have missed this completely. I have since come across this glitch with other searches.

I just finally found my 3xgreat grandparents in the 1851 census last night. They lived in a little village and I was really puzzled that their daughters were there, working away from home in the same village, but the parents weren't. The girls were down as having the surname Rowland, which is our family's accepted spelling of it, but the parents were spelt 'Roland'. I can't believe it never occurred to me to look under that spelling. I found that by putting the woman's first name and age and place of birth in and searching.

I think with spelling of names, we need to bear in mind so many couldn't read or write, that we need to think of every concieveable spelling there is. Smith/Smithe/Smyth/Smythe/Smithe/ I guess the census enumerators were reasonably educated/intelligent, but if you dont have the ability to spell your own name, what chance did he have?