Genealogy Chat

Hi i am quite new to this and i have a question - i have looked up for the names of my ancestors but the only ones i can find have different spelling of their surnames. It changes from Dockerill to Dockerell to Dockrill. I dont know whether these people are related or not. What do you think? Please help. Amy

Thank you - i will have to look into it further. Amy

Amy Until about half-way through the 19th century a lot of people were illiterate. There was also not a "correct" way to spell or write things and not nearly as much paperwork and form filling as we have now. Many people probably only made a few marks in the parish register in their whole lifetime. So they wouldn't necessarily know how their name should be written or how it had been written by someone else. I have many variations in my family names, examples: Chowns - also Chouns, Chownes, Chounes, Chowndes. Mealing - also Melin, Maling Gray - Grey This doesn't take account of the various mistranscriptions when the original writing has been misread - the 1901 census is notorious for this - I've had my Smoothy family written as Lenorthey, etc. So your variations may be the same family. How you prove they belong together is to see if you can find them together on a census, or connected on birth/marriage/death certs. Maybe they are in different places on a census but all have the same birthplace for example. Children will have their parents' names in baptism registers and on birth certs. If you are still unclear, put some details here and we can give an opinion. nell

Thankyou i have looked at anothe census and there names are still there but this one shows the surname a bit more clearly so the 'i' could have been mistaken for an 'e'. Amy