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Surnames and spellings

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ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

Suzie

Suzie Report 4 Dec 2006 06:03

When you find your ancestors way back had registerd with a different spelling do you put your spelling of the surname now or what they registered as eg Martin way back it was Martyn Chittleborough way back chittleburgh do you do both?

Gwyn in Kent

Gwyn in Kent Report 4 Dec 2006 07:54

Nowadays there are 4 main spellings for my maiden surname interest. I log them all under one spelling, - the one that I personally use and was registered, making a note that they were seen as ( whatever) in eg.1861 census or on child X's baptism etc. Gwyn

Andrea

Andrea Report 4 Dec 2006 09:56

I use one spelling for them all but in my records of what info I found and where I found it, I always put something along the lines of: NB Name was spelt Flannagan and then I can compare it later. It helps to find others too as it gives another option. EG I found one of my Flannagan's mistranscribed as Hannigan, so I know to check for Hannigan's aswell. If it was possible to get it wrong once, it could happen again - and it did!!! If you have more than one spelling of a name, I find it a pain, especially when looking for someone in FTM. I go to 'find' and type in Flannagan so it doesn't find them if they are in there as Flanagan / Flanaghan / Flanogan etc etc!!

Richard

Richard Report 4 Dec 2006 10:15

I have the same problem with my ancestors. The surname is spelt Daniel, Daniels, Daniell or Daniells ... it even differs between brothers and sisters. I guess it's because not everyone was able to read and write, and different registrars and census enumerators just guessed at the spelling. In Ancestry you can do a soundex search, which in my case brings up various spellings of my surname, and would do the same for a Flanagan search. Regards Richard

An Olde Crone

An Olde Crone Report 4 Dec 2006 12:39

On my GR tree, I put the spelling 'as found'. This is in the hope that it will attract matches from people who have only found one spelling and do not know what the 'correct' one is. OC

Rachel

Rachel Report 4 Dec 2006 12:56

I tend to use the birth / baptisum name, it is hard to find them in FTM but I'm use to just putting the first few letters of the surname inn and then scroling down to find the individual. I have the following spellings of the same surname Torney, Tornay, Tornei, Tornai, Tourney, Tournay, Tournai, Tournei and a few odd spellings too Lunar

Suzie

Suzie Report 9 Dec 2006 01:55

Thanks for the replies guys